EVENT FOCUS TOP CONFERENCE
TOP CONFERENCE 2024 THIRD SUCCESSFUL YEAR
Now in its third year, TOP Conference welcomed delegates, speakers and exhibitors to the conference for two days of talks and networking. Attendees came mainly from the UK (78%) but the conference also attracted those from Europe (12%) including Germany, France, Belgium and The Netherlands, as well as delegates from North America, Hungary, China and Japan. Over 30% of delegates came from research and development and academic backgrounds, with a similar number coming from organisations with over 2,000 employees. So far as the content, networking and range of topics covered was concerned, 100% of attendees said they would recommend TOP Conference to a colleague. Optical Connections’ editor Peter Dykes takes a look at the Conference programme.
DAY ONE Following the opening plenaries from Infinera’s Harald Bock and NIICT’s Ben Puttnam, the Conference kicked off with a panel/workshop introducing the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN) to the TOP audience. The session presented the foresight work carried out by the Optical Communications Experts Working Group (EWG) within UKTIN and debated interdependencies with other key technology domains in delivering future network solutions. The pre-lunch session covered Pump Lasers for Optical Amplification in Telecommunication Network Design, Reliability and Application, presented by Nadhum Zayer, from Coherent. Post-lunch, the Conference split into two streams, with Stream One covering Telecommunications topics, including the Future of Optics in Telecommunications; Experimentation Enabled by the National Dark Fibre Facility; and Integrating Hollow Core fibres with Single Mode Fibres. Stream Two , which covered Quantum Communication , featured presentations on Building Quantum-Safe Networks with Symmetric Key Distribution; Intra- city Quantum Networks and Inter-City satellite QKD; the Characterisation of Faint-Pulse-Sources for QKD; and An Integrated Fibre and Satellite QKD Network Optimisation. After a very welcome drinks reception, with poster sessions and exhibition time, Sessions Three and Four began, covering Photonic Components and Free Space Optics respectively. The former stream featured presentations on Pump Lasers for Optical Amplification in Telecommunication Network Design, Reliability and Applications; Components for – and system demonstrations using Spatial Division Multiplexing; How Optical Networking Fits in Telecoms Network Architecture; and Very Small Fibre Optic Interconnect Solutions Supporting the Exponential Bandwidth Demand. The Free Space Optics stream included presentations on Noise-robust Transport
and Manipulation of Photonic Spatial Mode Entanglement; Toward Wide-Field-of-View and Large Area Optical Detectors for High-Speed Optical Wireless Communication; and concluded with A Micromirror Array- Based Streak Camera for Multi-Channel, Multi-Spectral LIDAR. DAY TWO The final day of the Conference began with Plenaries from the University of Southampton’s
Graham Reed, and Prof. Dominic O’Brien from Oxford University. These were followed by a Panel Discussion which asked if the UK could stand up an industrial-scale semiconductor fab for future optical and quantum networks. Following lunch, presentations were held on topics such as Cloud-scale archival data storage using ultrafast lasers; Optical Networks for ML Systems; and Application of Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers in Optical Communications, in the Data Centre stream. In the Photonics for RAN stream, with topics including Long- haul core networks: Future needs for cable density and high fibre count cables; Optical fibre fronthaul for the disaggregated 6G RAN; and Fixed access evolution towards 6G networks. After lunch and the presentation of the award for the best poster, Stream Seven , which covered Network Planning, featured presentations on Versatile Optical Network Planning ; AI Carbon Footprint: how to design low complexity and sustainable ai tools; Modelling, Processing and Detection of Optical Signals in Advanced Communication Systems; and GPU-Accelerated Framework for Optical Communication System Design and Analysis. Finally, Stream Eight , continued the Free Space Optics theme, looking at Heterogeneous Integration and Silicon Photonics: Enabling Optics at Scale; Fibre optical parametric amplifiers for optical communications;
The panel sessions were an opportunity for in-depth discussion.
Mode division multiplexing technology: from ground to space; and 3.52 Tbps Dynamic Demultiplexing of Low-loss Spatial Modes in Strong Turbulence Using Reconfigurable Photonics.
THE POSTER SESSIONS The Poster Sessions proved more popular than ever and massive
congratulations go to Sarah Masaad , from Ghent University – imec, Belgium, for her poster on Photonic Reservoir Computing for Kramers-Kronig Receiver Linearization . A worthy winner in a very competitive field. CONCLUSION Two features which set the TOP Conference apart from many other similar events are the breadth of topics covered, along with the significant input from representatives of academia. Indeed, it is not often that industry professionals are able to meet and have such in-depth discussions with academics who are, after all, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with photonics. Conference organiser Emma Harvey commented, “In just three years, the TOP Conference has become the go-to event for the photonics industry in telecoms, as evidenced by the quality of the presenters it attracts and the range of topics covered. I’m already looking forward to TOP 2025!”
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| ISSUE 37 | Q2 2024
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