TOP CONFERENCE 2023
TOP CONFERENCE 2023 A SECOND SUCCESSFUL YEAR!
Optical Connections’ second Telecoms Optics and Photonics (TOP) conference, which took place in London on 13th - 14th February, brought together commercial, technical and academic players in the three title industries to discuss the latest technological developments and the challenges in the future. The event was hailed by participants as being “very valuable” in terms of exposure to cutting edge research, presented in an academic and technical manner. Among such a wide range of expertly presented topics, it is difficult to give more than a flavour of the conference, but Optical Connections’ editor Peter Dykes looks at some of the highlights.
Day One saw Geoff Bennett , Director of Solutions & Technology, Infinera, delivered an overview of how subsea cable technology has changed over the last 20 years, and how improvements in transponder technology have allowed data throughput to both keep track and lead in an almost symbiotic manner, whilst in the face of unrelenting demand. In particular, we’ll use real-life deployment data to illustrate the flexibility of modern transponders and how modulation formats, symbol rates and compensation algorithms can all be adjusted to optimize throughput on both the oldest and most up-to-date examples of submarine wetplant technology. Among a number of presentations on Quantum Communications, ranging from multipartite entanglement to quantum photonic packaging, Richard Pitwon , CEO, Resolute Photonics, talked about advanced photonic building blocks for dynamic reconfigurable networks in hyperscale data centres. He introduced the activities of two new European projects DYNAMOS and ADOPTION, on which Resolute Photonics will develop advanced photonic subsystems to allow deployment and reconfiguration of ultra-dynamic photonic components for data communication, using new optical wavelength bands, space division multiplexing, new integration schemes, optical switching and new switching paradigms, as solutions for time- deterministic and time-sensitive networks. The day was rounded off with a workshop
clock and frequency referenced access networks by Zhixin Liu , from University College London. Stream two saw presentations on laser- based terabit optical wireless networking by the University of Strathclyde’s Harald Haas ; Senko’s Senior Associate Technologist Michael O’Farrell , explained novel low loss metallic fibre-to-chip coupling for quantum photonic integrated circuit applications; Guy Nurse , Account Manager at Passcomm, spoke about small form factor fibre optic connectors for satellite and space applications and Aston University’s Yiming Li gave a presentation on photonic lantern- based high capacity multiple-input multiple- output free-space optical communications. A packed day was brought to a close with the Poster Session, followed by a panel discussion on the subject of the post-Brexit UK/EU funding landscape for photonics and quantum technology research, innovation and wealth creation, with Carol Monaghan Member of Parliament for the Scottish National Party, Manjari Chandra-Ramesh from Amadeus, EPIC’s Carlos Lee and James Regan .
TOP Conference 2023
which asked the question “Does the UK need a Dutch-style Photon/Quantum Delta Program?” The Netherlands is a leading nation in photonic and quantum technologies, strongly supported by government R&D programs. The Dutch Photon Delta program is an integrated photonics ecosystem for photonic chips and the Quantum Delta program consists of five connected quantum hubs collaborating on new applications of quantum technology. The panel debated if the UK’s photonics and quantum industries could learn from these Dutch initiatives. Day Two was split into two streams, the first of which included presentations from Zoe Davidson , Researcher of Optical Networks at BT, on materials and use cases for photonics integrated circuits; HUBER+SUHNER’s VP Technology Nick Parsons spoke about advances in high performance optical switches; and enabling low and stable latency communication using
The Poster Session
I can say that this has been one of the very best industry conferences that I have attended. I want to congratulate you and your sta on a brilliant conference and of course my gratitude to the Co-Chairs and Technical Programme Committee; with special thanks to Andrew Lord of BT for his time and attention during the conference, which made an important di erence. I think that the conference was a success and very valuable to Helios Energia in terms of exposure to cutting edge research, presented in an academic and technical manner at the plenary. The selection of top industry leaders and their willingness to share with us their latest developments was very exciting. TOP was a very powerful and inspiring conference. Congratulations! Floren Cabrera F. de Teresa CEO Helios Energia Ltd & Quantum Light Ltd.
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| ISSUE 32 | Q1 2023
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