The GTF has a proven track record in the field of fibre optics, a field in which the group started its activity towards the end of the 1980s with research focused on the properties of optical fibres for the telecommunications market and soon diversified into the field of fibre optic sensors.
The three main sublines of work are:
Pulsed fibre optic lasers and supercontinuum generation.
The objective in the pulsed fibre lasers subline is to improve the process of measuring and characterising sub-picosecond pulses, to develop sources at other wavelengths than those achieved so far, and to exploit these pulses for the study of non-linear optical phenomena. The supercontinuum generation subline aims to advance its application in biophotonics for measuring biological samples and in hyperspectral imaging.
POF technology
The objective of the Plastic Optical Fibres sub-line focuses on the development of technologies for application in high-speed communication networks for short-range environments. In this context, the study of new fibre types with higher bandwidth potential, such as gradient index fibres (GI-POF) and multi-core fibres (MC-POF), and the design of new transmission techniques with higher spectral efficiency are essential for the deployment of POF-based optical links.
Optical Communications Systems
This sub-line aims to explore the potential of coherent PON networks to alleviate the growing bandwidth requirements of today's communications networks, especially for home and office access. Essentially, the work is aimed at developing integrated coherent receivers that operate at transmission rates of 50G or 100G and are independent of the polarisation of the input signal.