By Morten Andersen*

The research is part of a programme of interaction with companies to use the results commercially. “The DTU’s COM Centre is coming up with world records and all of us in the Danish Optics Communication Cluster are benefiting from their research,” says Christian Larsen, chairman of the cluster, which numbers 15 companies.

Kristian Stubkjær, director of the COM Centre, is like the cat that got the cream: “Absolutely, and I’m lapping it up! But it’s no coincidence that we are producing usable results. The majority of our board members are people with a professional background from industry. It is very important for us to have this interaction.”

The most-coveted world record is probably number of bits per second which can be transmitted via an optical system. But other types of records are being pursued too, for example the compactness of the equipment which sends and receives the signals at each end of the fibre. At the time of writing, for example, the COM Centre has the most effective system for receiving optical signals at a transmission speed of 160 Gbit/sec – equivalent to 160 billion flashes a second or, put another way, 2 million telephone calls being transferred simultaneously via a single optical fibre. The system is based on a new type of fibre which has been developed in collaboration with the company Crystal Fibre.

Bandwidth eaters

“Nothing is more exciting for a young researcher than to be involved in setting this type of world record. This is also one of the reasons why you frequently come across people sitting in the office and slaving away into the night,” says Kristian Stubkjær, who goes on to underline the prospects for applications.

“Certainly it has relevance to Mr and Mrs Smith, or perhaps more accurately to their children, because in the future they will have games that literally eat bandwidth. There is no alternative to optical technology if we are going to meet
this need.”

The 15 companies in the Danish Optics Communications Cluster all produce components for optics communication. Chairman Christian Larsen is himself conducting research within OFS Denmark, which produces optical fibres.

“It may well be that our name isn’t on the papers when the researchers announce their records but it is often our fibres they have used. That’s why we definitely feel that we have a share in the records,” says Christian Larsen.

He also highlights the researcher scheme, which enables a young employee to be employed in a company and study for a PhD at a university at the same time.

“The scheme has been an enormous success both for DTU COM and the companies. It is a good way of bringing business and academia together. As a researcher, you also have access to a large network. Taken as a whole, it is a rich exchange because the optics environment in the area is so big,” adds Kristian Stubkjær.

DTU’s COM Centre has approximately 135 employees and there are approximately 2,000 people working in the cluster, mostly engaged in development work.

Optics behind mobile success

The Danish optics environment also comprises employees from a number of telecoms companies (the cluster is exclusively for companies that produce optical products).

“The telecoms sector is frequently the target group for optical products. But if you ask the telecoms companies, they will undoubtedly say that it is another branch of our work that is the most important, namely integrating the optical systems with other telecom systems. This is a precondition for optimal utilisation of capacity,” says Kristian Stubkjær.

For the same reason, DTU COM’s research extends from development of new materials and components via construction of entire systems, networks, coding and multimedia to telecoms policy.

However, the product-orientated part of DTU COM’s research only relates to the fixed network.“This is why we can easily become a little envious of all the fuss surrounding mobile telephony,” says Kristian Stubkjær.

“But you have to remember that mobile telephony is only mobile for the last few kilometres. Behind the scenes is a powerful network based on optical transmission. So there is no doubt that their success is ours too!”.

This article was originally published by Øresund IT Magasine (Autumn 2002). In Publications, you can download the magazine in PDF format.

*Morten Andersen is a Danish journalist living in Copenhagen.