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Optical generation of ultra-wideband signal by upconversion of laser pulses2012 SYTACom Summer SchoolCommunications for sustainable development in the North

Table of contents

p.2 Word from the Director

p.3-6 Optical generation of ultra-wideband signal by upconversion of laser pulses

p.7 SYTACom/China Collaborative Research Workshop

p.8-9 2012 SYTACom Summer School

p.10 Reaching for Copacabana: Building research bridges to Brazil

p.11 Communications for sustainable development in the North

p.12 AnnouncementsWord from the DirectorOnce again, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the latest edition of SYTUATION.In the pages that follow, we highlight the ongoing efforts to strengthen the bridges linking SYTACom’s international research relationships and introduce new partnerships currently being developed with Brazil. We consider communications in Quebec’s northern regions and explore SYTACOM’s role in the Plan Nord, the government of Quebec’s strategic plan for the sustainable development of the North. It is clear that the collaborative research undertaken by communications experts within SYTACom will be essential to avoiding the development of an ICT black hole in the North. We also highlight the work undertaken by our talented graduate students: PhD student Mehrdad Mirshafiei delves into the field of optics and presents an investigation of optical generation of UWB. And finally, you will find a description of the highly successful inaugural student-led SYTACom Summer School. In particular, I must commend the efforts of the student planning committee, as well as that of SYTACom Student Coordinator, Prof. Michael Rabbat, to bring together an event that saw invited talks from giants in the fields of wireless communica-tions and silicon photonics, an intriguing research problem-solving session as well as a dynamic research presentation competition. I applaud participants for their level of engagement and for the mature insight they brought to the event. Bravo!

As always, I wish you enjoyable reading.

David V. PlantSYTACom Centre Director

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[SYTUATION]

SYTUATION is the newsletter of the Centre for Advanced Systems and Technologies in Communications (SYTACom). Hosted at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, SYTACom is a multi-university research center devoted to research in the area of communication systems.

Credits

Contributors: Carrie Serban Administrative Coordinator McGill University

Fabrice Labeau Associate Director - Operations Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering McGill University

Translation: Amélie Saint-JacquesDesign: Sonia Mercier

SYTACom Research Centre

McGill University3480 University #753Montreal, Quebec, CANADAPhone: 514 398-8104Fax: 514 398-3127www.sytacom.mcgill.ca

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IntroductionUltra-wideband (UWB) communications is a research field that promises very high data rate wireless indoor communications. To support deployment of UWB radio, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued its first report in 2002. Per this ruling, UWB radio enjoys a huge 7.5 GHz bandwidth, from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz. However, the equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) from a UWB device should be below a spectral mask (Fig. 1) [1]. The weak UWB pulses are inherently short range which makes the operation of multiple independent links possible within the same house. The broadband property of the UWB signal makes it resistant to interference because any interfering signal is likely to affect a small portion of the desired signal spectrum. UWB has applications in short range wireless communication, centimeter accuracy in ranging, RF tagging for personal and asset tracking and medical monitoring.

To extend the range of UWB communications, pulse shaping techniques that use most of the available power under the FCC spectral mask are essential. Furthermore, fiber transport of UWB signals extend their reach from a few meters to several kilometers. Direct generation of UWB signals in the optical domain attracted a growing interest in recent years. At Laval University, we have previously developed an optical pulse shaping method to precisely generate very efficient UWB pulses that closely respect the FCC spectral mask [2]. Our pulse shaping method was based on spectral shaping of a laser source using a fiber Bragg grating (FBG).

To provide end users with both wired and wireless services, the UWB over-fiber system should be compatible with the future passive optical networks (PONs) (Fig. 2). The current PON networks are based on time-division multiple access (TDMA) but the networks are expected to evolve to WDM-PON to accommodate future traffic growth [3]. In a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)-PON optical pulses are generated by several laser sources at a central office. Optical intensity modulators add the data on the optical intensity. Diffident wave-lengths are multiplexed together and coupled in a single-mode fiber. The optical fiber links the central office with the end users.

Optical generation of ultra-wideband signal by upconversion of laser pulses

Figure 1: FCC spectral masks for indoor and outdoor communication applications.

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An arrayed waveguide grating is used to direct the data on each wavelength to its corresponding user. At the user side, we can have some optical processing before photodetection. An antenna after photodetection transmits wirelessly the UWB signals for high speed indoors communications. In Fig. 2 each color represents a wavelength of light.

In this article we present a simple method to generate UWB pulses by using an optical intensity modulator to upconvert Gaussian-like pulses generated by a pulses laser [4]. The design allows for an integrated, low cost implementation and is compatible with WDM-PON concept. Our method is based on upconver-sion of optical pulses using an optical intensity modulator. Pulses are multiplied by a 6.85 GHz sinusoidal signal to move their spectrum to the center of the FCC mask. Optical fiber transports the pulses to end users. We study the impact of fiber dispersion on UWB pulse spectrum.

Experimental SetupFig. 3 shows the simplied block diagram of the UWB pulse generator. A conti-nuous wave laser is gain-switched by applying a bias current below the lasing threshold in addition to a sinusoidal signal. This is like turning the laser on and off consecutively resulting in very short pulses. The laser output pulses are around 40 ps wide.

The pulses are propagated through 20 km of optical fiber. An erbium-doped fiber amplier (EDFA) is used to amplify the pulses. The amplied spontaneous emission (ASE) from the EDFA is suppressed using a 1.2 nm optical bandpass filter. The optical pulses after SMF propagation are measured using an oscilloscope.

A 3 dB coupler is used to divide the optical signal. The pulse shaping section of the setup consists of two branches. At the upper branch, there is a delay line (DL), a polarization controller (PL), and a 10 GHz Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM).

Figure 2: A WDM-PON network transporting UWB radio signals.

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The only component in the lower branch is an attenuator (ATT). The attenuator and the delay line are used to balance the power and the delay of the two branches. The two branches are connected to a 10 GHz balanced photodetector (BPD). Balanced detection eliminates low frequency components of the signal.

Discussion and ResultsThe modulator is biased in quadrature to generate the maximum amount of power after differential detection. A 6.85 GHz sinusoidal signal modulates the optical pulses. The nonlinear response of the MZM produces the harmonics of the electrical modulation signal. At the quadrature point, the MZM output is main-ly at the fundamental frequency of the electrical modulation signal. The avai-lable bandwidth under the FCC spectral mask is 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, centered around 6.85 GHz. Therefore, a 6.85 GHz modulating sinusoidal signal upconverts the pulses to the center of the FCC mask, resulting in a good FCC compliance. Another frequency component present at the output of the MZM is the baseband frequency response of the gain-switched laser pulses. This unwanted low- frequency component is suppressed using the balanced photodetector.

Fig. 4a shows the measured UWB waveform in time domain. The pulse has a duration of about 0.5 ns. The normalized power spectral density (PSD) of the pulse is plotted in Fig. 4b. The PSD is measured using a high-speed RF spectrum analyzer. The Fourier transform of the time domain pulse is also plotted and closely follows the measured PSD (dashed, blue). We can see that the PSD is maximum at 6.85 GHz. To confirm that the pulse complies with the FCC mask need to calculate the EIRP.

To investigate the EIRP, we consider the commercially available 3.1-10 GHz SkyCross SMT-3TO10MA antenna. We measure the antenna gain response using a vector network analyzer [2]. The normalized EIRP when transmitting our pulse is simulated and shown in Fig. 4b (solid, red). The EIRP fully respects the FCC mask.

The power efficiency is as

where EIRP is the PSD of the UWB pulse and SFCC is the FCC spectral mask.

Figure 4: The experimental results. (a) the normalized gain-switched laser pulse after fiber transmission, (b) the PSD vis-a-vis the FCC spectral mask.

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Figure 3: The schematic diagram of the proposed UWB waveform generator. GSL: gain-switched laser, PC: polarization controller, MZM: Mach-Zehnder modulator, SMF: single-mode ber, EDFA: erbium-doped fiber amplier, BPF: bandpass filter, DL: delay line, ATT: attenuator, BPD: balanced photodetector.

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References

[1] D. Porcino and W. Hirt, “Ultra-wideband radio technology: potential and challenges ahead”, IEEE Communi-cations Magazine, vol. 41, no. 7, pp. 66-74, 2003.

[2] M. Abtahi, M. Mirshaei, S. LaRochelle, and L. Rusch, “All-Optical 500-Mb/s UWB Transceiver: An Experimental Demonstration”, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 26, no. 15, pp. 2795-2802, Aug. 2008.

[3] K. Grobe and J.-P. Elbers, “PON in adolescence: from TDMA to WDM-PON”, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 26-34, Jan. 2008.

[4] Mirshaei, M. and Ghazisaeidi, A. and Lemus, D. and LaRochelle, S. and Rusch, L.A., “Upconversion of Gain-Switched Laser Pulses for Optical Generation of UWB Signals”, J. Lightw. Techol., vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 207-214, Jan 2012.

The PE is calculated over the 3.1-10.6 GHz band. The power efficiency, calculated over the 3.1-10.6 GHz band, for the pulse shown in Fig. 4a is 45.7%. Using the same antenna, the power efficiency of the Gaussian mono-cycle and the Gaussian fifth-derivative would be 4% and 40%.

The pulse shown in Fig. 4a was obtained after 20 km of SMF fiber. When the length of fiber changes, the pulse duration varies because of dispersion. The GSL pulse shapes depend on the DC bias current of the laser. We tune the DC bias current and find pulses that result in the best PSD. Fig. 5 shows that a good mask coverage is possible for distances between 15 km and 25 km. The extra dispersion at 35 km results in a narrow PSD and decreases the PE. With no fiber dispersion, the pulse is very short and the PSD too wide (Fig. 5).

Figure 5: The normalized PSD of UWB waveforms for various optical fiber lengths plotted against the 3.1-10.6 GHz band of the FCC spectral mask.

About the AuthorMehrdad Mirshaei was born on April 20, 1984. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Universite Laval, in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Universite Laval, Quebec City, QC, Canada. His current research interests include silicon photonics, optical communications, and microwave photonics.

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A principal tenet underlying SYTACom’s mission is the establishment of strong research nexuses between Centre members and high calibre international researchers. Once established, these ties must be continually nurtured in order to maintain productive collaborations with international partners. One recent example of the ongoing efforts of our researchers to strengthen such relationships is an international workshop that was hosted by SYTACom on June 19-20, 2012. This workshop is a direct result of a successful relationship that began with an exploratory mission to China in 2009: the cooperation has grown into a highly productive and innovative partnership between SYTACom and the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT).SYTACom members Tho Le-Ngoc and Fabrice Labeau, along with their teams, were joined by researchers from BUPT and the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army Remote Medicine Center for the 2-day workshop. Day 1 of the event was led by SYTACom student ambassador, Di Lin, and featured a day of informal research meetings followed by a city tour. On the second day, delegates presented the research underway in both Montreal and China, toured the Broadband Communications Laboratory at McGill University, and discussed future directions for ongoing and new collaborations.Researchers presented their latest results in wireless e-health, as well as future perspectives in the domain. Chinese partners demonstrated an early prototype of a wireless sensor network-based emergency system to be used in disaster recovery situations. This system allows medical teams to quickly deploy a sensor network that covers a disaster area, and, coupled with portable devices developed by the BUPT team, brings patients’ vital signs to a centralized station for monitoring.

Additional portable devices also allow for socialized remote diagnosis of patients in the field. SYTACom researchers demonstrated advances made in the areas of biomedical signal processing (in particular EEG and ECG compression), decision support systems, as well as wireless in-hospital monitoring systems. The latter systems allow remote monitoring coupled with indoor location within hospital emergency rooms.Based on these exchanges, additional joint research avenues have been identified. Future visits have been scheduled between industrial collaborators and academics to ensure that the research remains relevant to both end-users and to the industrial partners who will one day commercialize these products.

SYTACom/China Collaborative Research Workshop

SYTACom student ambassador, Di Lin

Workshop participants (left to right): Chen Li (BUPT), Na Dou (Remote Medicine Center), Meikui Zhang (Remote Medicine Center), Guixia Kang (BUPT), Fabrice Labeau (SYTACom), Charles Despins (Prompt Inc.), Tho Le-Ngoc (SYTACom)

One of SYTACom’s key objectives, in addition to training the next generation of engineering and scientific experts, is to provide our students with opportunities to develop their critical thinking and presentation skills, as well as to develop a network of contacts in industry that will help them find internships or em-ployment after they graduate. In support of this goal, the inaugural SYTACom Summer School was held on June 14 and 15, 2012, at École Polytechnique de Montréal.The 2-day event was attended by a motivated and engaged group of students from École de technologie supérieure, McGill University, Université Laval, and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, and featured invited talks, a research problem solving session, a research presentation competition and several social events. One particular social event was aimed at bringing together students and industry participants during an informal reception: industry representatives presented their companies and students had the opportunity to pose questions in one on one discussion.A highlight of the summer school was the problem solving session that took place during the afternoon of the first day of the event. Participants spent 3 hours in groups of 5 thinking about possible engineering solutions to an open-ended problem. The groups were formed with the intent of matching together parti-cipants from different backgrounds and different home universities in order to foster as much as possible creative thinking and cross-fertilization of ideas. The students were asked to consider social networks of the future in terms of the telecommunications infrastructure underpinning their deployment, but also in terms of security or load management. Following an afternoon of hard work, each group was tasked to succinctly present its results during the evening reception at the Montreal Biosphere.

The exercise proved successful beyond expectation, judging from the depth and breadth of what each group was able to bring to the table. Some groups concentrated on the identification of bottlenecks that could prevent the overall network from sustaining huge volumes of traffic and proposed solutions such as distributed storage, dynamic caching or server migration. Some noted that cost was an important problem and discussion ensued on a potential business model that could make future social networks profitable. The important problem of energy consumption was also touched upon, with solutions including green datacenters. Finally, the social implications of such deployments were also discussed.Attendees demonstrated impressive levels of maturity and creativity in considering this problem -- two assets that will undoubtedly serve them well in their future research careers.

2012 SYTACom Summer School

Student groups presenting results of the research problem solving session

Right page:2 - 2012 SYTACom Summer School attendees3 - SYTACom Student Coordinator Michael Rabbat4 - Winners of the SYTACom student research presentation competition:

Hoda Daou (4a) Saeed Reza Khosravirad (4b) Konstantinos Tsianos (4c)

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Over the past several years, Brazil has witnessed spectacular growth in its ICT sector and now represents one of the strongest ICT markets in the world. In particular, Brazil’s telecommunications are evolving at an astonishing pace. In this context, the Quebec government recently organized a mission to Brazil that aimed to provide Quebec researchers with an opportunity to develop collabora-tions with Brazilian experts in communications.An exploratory missionIn February, 2012, SYTACom members Tiago Falk and Fabrice Labeau participated in the Quebec-Brazil mission and had the opportunity to probe beneath the surface of Brazil’s colossal progress in communications. Delegates visited several institutions in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in particular, two research- intensive universities in Rio, namely the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) and the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). These institutions are leading in fields such as signal processing and speech recognition. In São Paulo, researchers visited the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), the Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC), and the Universidade de Campinas (UNICAMP). Following the official Quebec-Brazil mission, Prof. Falk organized a SYTACom mission to Recife to explore potential collaborations with researchers at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), the Universidade de Pernambuco (UPE) and Porto Digital.

Concrete OutcomesAt the time of writing, Prof. Falk has established a number of concrete outcomes from the Quebec-Brazil Mission. Specifically, together with Prof. Francisco Fraga from UFABC, an MSc student from UFABC is being jointly co-supervised in the area of speech-based assistive technologies. Prof. Fraga, in turn, will take his one-year sabbatical at Prof. Falk’s Multimedia Signal Analysis and Enhance-ment (MuSAE) Lab at INRS-EMT, starting in the fall, 2012. Talks are also under way with Applied Brain and Vision Sciences (Victoria, BC, Canada) and Webcore Games (São Paulo, SP, Brazil) to develop a project aimed at building serious games for very early mental disorder diagnosis. An application has also been submitted to the ‘Science Without Borders’ Program by a PhD student from UFRJ interested in doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the MuSAE Lab, starting in the winter 2013.SYTACom will continue to foster these relationships with the goal of building long-term research exchanges and enabling further research opportunities for our members and their international collaborators.

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Participants in the Quebec-Brazil Mission at the Universidade Federal do ABC (from left to right): Francisco Fraga (UFABC), Marcos Duarte (UFABC), Fabrice Labeau (SYTACom), Tiago Falk (SYTACom), Mohammed Sawan (ReSMiQ), Emery Lins (UFABC), and Carlos Alberto Kamienski (UFABC).

Reaching for Copacabana: Building research bridges to Brazil

Communications for sustainable development in the North

The Plan Nord is a major project that was launched recently by the Quebec government. It aims to develop the economic potential of Quebec’s northern regions and to ensure the well-being of northern communities while protecting the area’s environment.There has been significant public debate around this plan and its methods; in order to bring a scientific perspective on these issues, Laval University recently organized a workshop entitled “Mobilizing for a Sustainable North”, which aimed at presenting the role of research in this gargantuan endeavour.SYTACom was invited to this workshop to present the research carried out by its members in areas relevant to the Plan Nord. We take this opportunity to illustrate here some of the vital roles that communica-tions will play in the successful development of the North.

Improved safety for the mining industryAs showcased in detail in an earlier issue of SYTUATION, SYTACom researchers are involved in the development of improved communica-tions systems for underground mine applications. Signal propagation in underground mine tunnels faces some challenges that are not typical in most other application areas, including topological issues (e.g., long and narrow tunnels), specific humidity issues (e.g., high level of humidity, water on the ground) and specific reflection patterns (e.g., uneven walls with high levels of metallic content). SYTACom researchers have developed specific channel models for these environments for different wireless access technologies such as WiFi, UWB, etc. These enhanced communications capabilities are, of course, essential to the safety of workers in these underground mines. Capitalizing on these successes, new radiolocation systems have been developed that can specifically locate personnel and assets within 25 cm, a major improvement with respect to competing technologies.

Connectivity for remote communitiesThe low density of population in northern regions has always made it difficult and economically challenging to deploy a communications infrastructure that could provide broadband services to remote communities. In the context of the development of new communities around industrial sites that is envisioned in the Plan Nord, rapidly reconfigurable and flexible infrastructure becomes another requi-rement. Although fiber backbones are in place in some areas,

these types of infrastructures are difficult to reconfigure and cannot meet the rapid deployment requirements outlined above. SYTACom researchers at Ecole de technologie supérieure (ETS) are currently studying the potential of wireless mesh solutions to solve these issues. Building on their expertise and industrial success in developing tactical and emergency communications systems, they are envisioning rapidly deployable wireless infrastructures that would allow 10- to 80-kilometer hops and would provide broadband services to remote communities and remote exploration sites alike.

The datacenter opportunityDatacenters are known to be a major cause of CO2 emissions; some studies forecast that by 2020, datacenters will have surpassed the aeronautics industry in terms of CO2 emissions. In parallel, cloud-based solutions are seen as energy efficient solutions for most ICT applications as they allow for applications multiplexing and thus, avoid powering many individual smaller servers that would otherwise sit idle for large periods of time. This can only increase the reliance on large datacenters in the foreseeable future and lead to an even larger CO2 emission problem.Northern Quebec presents unique opportunities for mitigating this problem. First, it offers access to low carbon footprint hydro-electric power; second, installing a datacenter in northern areas would directly reduce cooling needs and thus, directly impact the overall energy consumption of the datacenter.Based on these considerations, SYTACom researchers have been working with well-known datacenter design companies to design the green datacenters of the future; this will allow dramatic reduction in the carbon footprint of the ICT industry.

PerspectivesBeyond the examples above, there are many other SYTACom research topics that directly relate to the sustainable development of Quebec’s northern regions. It is clear that this development will not be possible without the availability of key communications technologies and SYTACom research results are poised to play an important role in this large-scale venture.

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SYTACom members as of September 2012

Abhari, Ramesh McGill University AssociateAffes, Sofiène INRS-EMT RegularAgba, Basile Institut de recherche d’Hydro-Québec (IREQ) Industry CollaboratorAïssa, Sonia INRS-EMT RegularAjib, Wessam Université du Québec à Montréal RegularAzaña, Jose INRS-EMT AssociateBajcsy, Jan McGill University RegularBeaubrun, Ronald Université Laval RegularBock, Wojtek Université du Québec en Outaouais RegularChampagne, Benoit McGill University RegularChen, Lawrence McGill University RegularChouinard, Jean-Yves Université Laval AssociateCoates, Mark McGill University RegularCoulombe, Stéphane École de technologie supérieure AssociateDahmane, Adel Omar Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières RegularDespins, Charles École de technologie supérieure RegularDssouli, Rachida Concordia University RegularDziong, Zbigniew École de technologie supérieure RegularFalk, Tiago INRS-EMT AssociateFortier, Paul Université Laval RegularGagnon, François École de technologie supérieure RegularGhrayeb, Ali Concordia University RegularGlitho, Roch Concordia University AssociateGrégoire, Jean-Charles INRS-EMT RegularGross, Warren McGill University RegularHaccoun, David École Polytechnique RegularHaghighat, Afshin InterDigital Industry CollaboratorKabal, Peter McGill University RegularKhendek, Ferhat Concordia University RegularKirk, Andrew McGill University RegularLabeau, Fabrice McGill University RegularLandry, René Jr. École de technologie supérieure RegularLaperle, Charles Ciena Industry CollaboratorLaRochelle, Sophie Université Laval AssociateLe, Long INRS-EMT AssociateLefebvre, Roch Université de Sherbrooke RegularLeib, Harry McGill University RegularLemieux, Yves Ericsson Industry CollaboratorLe-Ngoc, Tho McGill University RegularLiboiron-Ladouceur, Odile McGill University RegularLynch, Bill Concordia University RegularMaheswaran, Muthucumaru McGill University RegularMaier, Martin INRS-EMT RegularMehmet Ali, Mustafa Concordia University RegularO’Shaughnessy, Douglas INRS-EMT RegularPlant, David McGill University RegularPopovic, Milica McGill University AssociatePsaromiligkos, Ioannis McGill University RegularRabbat, Michael McGill University RegularRoberts, Kim Ciena Industry CollaboratorRochette, Martin McGill University RegularRose, Richard McGill University Regular Roy, Sébastien Université Laval RegularRusch, Leslie Université Laval AssociateShayan, Yousef Concordia University RegularSoleymani, M. Reza Concordia University RegularStéphenne, Alex Huawei Industry CollaboratorSzczecinski, Leszek INRS-EMT RegularTremblay, Christine École de technologie supérieure RegularVu, Mai McGill University RegularWu, Ke École Polytechnique AssociateZidane, Redouane Bell Canada Industry Collaborator

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Announcements

AwardsSYTACom researcher, Lawrence Chen, was honoured by one of the top scientific societies in recognition of his outstan-ding work in the field of optical research. Professor Chen was named Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) for contributions to optical fiber communications, in particular fiber Bragg gratings, optical code-division multiple-access and pulse shaping.

Photo: Owen Egan