Signal bandwidth enhancement in Parametric amplifiErs by Exploiting multi-moDe nonlinear effects in fibres (SPEED)

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The development of energy-efficient, ultra-high capacity communication networks capable of connecting people and businesses seamlessly everywhere is one of the most important challenges facing modern society. The traffic on the global communications infrastructure keeps rapidly increasing, typically at a rate of 40% per annum, driven by the communication services applications that are drastically increasing in number ( e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) and demand on bandwidth (e.g. HDTV, 3D,...). This continuously increase of available bandwidth/ capacity in a single optical fibre has been ensured by the enormous progress in optical communication systems over the years (e. g. employing many wavelengths or new types of complex modulated signals). When transmitting these new types of signals, current networks need to change their corresponding hardware (e. g. implementing new transmitters and receivers). However, the ideal network should handle them at no extra hardware cost.The project SPEED proposes to investigate all-optical solutions that are compatible with the existing fibre technology and functionalities to guarantee that the network can handle signals that may be developed and used in coming years. This will guarantee that the consumer can continue enjoying new bandwidth-hungry services that have being offered at no extra cost.So far, the proposed all-optical solutions are mainly based on coherent mixing in single mode nonlinear media. SPEED aims to develop a new nonlinear platform technology, the multi-mode one, with the vision to propose novel low-cost and energy-efficient solutions for the future-proof upgradable transmission systems discussed above. A detailed study will be conducted to demonstrate the advantages and the enhanced functionality offered by multi-mode nonlinear platform as compared to the widely developed single-mode one in a variety of disruptive applications in many key areas. The added degree of freedom given by the spatial dimension of few-mode waveguides will improve the system performance, mainly in terms of broadband operation and noise by a factor that is proportional to the number of modes.