| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/L83561/01 |
| Title: |
INTEGRATED OPTOELECTRONIC CROSSBARS |
| Principal Investigator: |
Toumazou, Professor C |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Electrical and Electronic Engineering |
| Organisation: |
Imperial College London |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
15 July 1998 |
Ends: |
14 July 2001 |
Value (£): |
146,728
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Optical Communications |
Optical Devices & Subsystems |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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The commercial importance of optoelectronic crosspoints is highlighted in a recent market survey undertaken by ElectroniCast Corporation which predicts that from 1994-2004 the North American production of fibre switch matrices will increase by between 30-40% per year to over $800M/year, with rising quantities partially offset by a decline in price brought about by rising levels of integration. As identified by the UK aerospace industry, there is a need to route these high bandwidth optical signals. An attractive feature of an optical switch using beam-steering or masking techniques, is that the switch is 'transparent' to the data rate and wavelength. However, an optical switch is limited in its usefulness by several drawbacks: functionality, high-cost insertion loss, degradation in SNR, switching speed, physical size and crosstalk limiting the maximum number of ports to ~16. Cascading switches, using the output of one switch as the input to another is often required to form a network, the accumulation of crosstalk in an optical switch allows this functionality only with an increase in BER. The aim of this project is to perform research in the area of optoelectronic crossbars. In particular, the project will focus on the construction of an integrated demonstration system.When completed this work will deliver a low-cost fibre switch with a performance superior to everything currently available and comparable to anything planned. Operation at a planned data rate of up to 10Gb/s will make this switch of interest to a variety of telecommunication and data communication users. In addition, there will be commercially important spin-offs from this work: the arrays of receivers and VCSEL driver chips will be useful for a variety of other on-going projects elsewhere in the UK, the fibre connector technology is of great interest to a number of users as is the understanding of the modal properties of modulated VCSELs.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.imperial.ac.uk |