OPTCOMM

Company/Organisation Profiles

The Optical Communications and Photonics Technology Laboratory of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens belongs to the Division of Communications and Signal Processing of the Department of Informatics. The Academic and Research staff (12 Professors and Associate Researchers) teams up with a number of graduate students. The laboratory activities started at the period of the first rapid expansion of optical communications in the beginning of the eighties. The first research activities of the group were focused in the field of analogue and digital optical transmission systems. The research was developed, progressively, towards some of the most advanced fields of optical communications such as optoelectronic integration, WDM and OTDM techniques, high bit rate communications of very long distances with optical solitons etc.

The above mentioned activities were enhanced through co-operation with other European Partners (Industries, Universities and Research Institutes) within the framework of more than ten RACE, ACTS, and IST programs, but also by undertaking projects sponsored by the Hellenic Telecom, the National Commission of Research and Technology and the local industry. Since1998, the Laboratory belongs to a national network of certified test and measurement laboratories. In the year 2000 the Laboratory has been certified with the ISO 9002 certificate for optical power and spectral measurements as well as OTDR calibration.

Innovative Products and Services

The Lab focuses mainly in the development of optical communications systems. However, it has expanded gradually to a broad range of activities covering, apart from communications other areas such as design and characterization of photonic components and subsystems (semiconductor lasers, passive integrated devices, photoreceivers, etc.), photonic sensors and related systems, fiber optic components, nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers with applications in cryptography, free space optical communications systems, etc.

Experience and Expertise

The lab is equipped with state of the art instrumentation for electrical and optical measurement and characterization as well as systems performing diagnostics of fiber optic installations. It has the possibility to perform microwave measurement up to 50 GHz and optical spectrum measurements with resolution of 20 Mhz. Moreover, it has software for the design of microwave circuits as well as photonic integrated circuits. The funding of the group comes mainly from European and National research projects but also from service provision to the private sector.