Photonic Phase Conjugation Systems (PHOS)

互联网的巨大成功是毋庸置疑的，它触及了我们日常生活和商业的方方面面。这一成功从根本上是由看不见的地下和海底光缆的巨大容量以及与之相关的技术所支撑的。事实上，在20世纪90年代中期，网络使用的最初激增与第一个光纤放大的跨大西洋有线网络（TAT12/13）的投入使用相吻合，该网络允许随时访问否则无法访问的信息。同样，社交媒体的显著增长是由光纤引入数据中心支持的，这使得它们的巨大增长。自20世纪70年代首次引入数据通信以来，指数增长一直是数据通信的一个特征，并且逐渐引入了诸如光学放大、波分复用和相干调制等激进技术，从而推动了指数增长。如今，所有这些技术都已被常规部署，人们普遍认为光纤正在变得饱和。光纤容量的限制源于这样一个事实，即强烈的信号被非线性显著扭曲（类似于扩音器的超速运行）。这种失真限制了可能通过光纤链路传输的最大信息量，除非加以对抗，否则非线性响应将导致容量紧缩，将互联网访问限制在今天的水平。面对持续的指数级增长的需求，除非取消这些限制，否则将需要许多并行系统，导致能源消耗呈指数级增长，直到这种资源的成本变得令人望而却步并最终限制增长。只有一种技术，光学相位共轭（像镜子一样反射颜色），已经被证明可以在不需要广泛使用多个光纤和相关的能源消耗增长的情况下，为互联网的持续增长提供支持。与牛顿棱镜非常相似，光学相位共轭允许一根光纤的畸变（类似于牛顿棱镜中的光谱扩展）通过另一根相同的光纤来补偿。在PHOS中，我们将在基本非线性材料的评估和优化子系统配置方面优化执行这种共轭的设备。-证明光纤的能力有了数量级的提高，无论是用于跨度不均匀的实际点对点链路，还是用于具有过多不同路由的光网络。-验证光相位共轭的使用是否具有成本效益，无论是在与现有产品相比降低网络部署成本方面，还是在通过更大的容量和更低的延迟增强向客户提供的服务方面。此外，由于光相位共轭将改变网络的能力，PHOS将致力于消除网络发射器和接收器中的瓶颈，将其性能提高一个数量级，从而使连接速度提高10倍。补偿光域缺陷的方法，结合简化的数字信号处理和增强光纤带宽的利用，将降低成本、尺寸和与每根光纤提供10兆位/秒容量相关的功耗。如果成功，PHOS将通过使用光相位共轭技术大规模增加数据容量，使英国拥有最先进的光通信网络，并成为全球领先的技术供应商。

The remarkable success of the internet is unquestioned, touching all aspects of our daily lives and commerce. This success is fundamentally underpinned by the tremendous capacity of unseen underground and undersea optical fibre cables and the technologies associated with them. Indeed, the initial surge in web usage in the mid 1990s coincides with the commissioning of the first optically amplified transatlantic cable network, TAT12/13 that allowed ready access to information otherwise inaccessible. Similarly, the remarkable growth of social media is supported by the introduction of optical fibres into data centres, allowing their tremendous growth. Exponential growth has been a characteristic of data communications since their first introduction in the 1970's and has been fuelled by the gradual introduction of radical technologies, such as optical amplification, wavelength-division multiplexing and coherent modulation. All of these technologies are today routinely deployed and it is widely acknowledged that fibres are becoming full. The limit to fibre capacity has its origin in the fact that the intense signals are significantly distorted by nonlinearly (a similar effect to overdriving loudspeakers). This distortion limits the maximum amount of information which may be transmitted across and optical fibre link, and unless combated, the nonlinear response will result in a capacity crunch, limiting access to the internet to today's levels. Faced with the ongoing exponential growth in demand, unless these restrictions are lifted many parallel systems will be required, resulting in exponentially increasing energy consumption, until the cost of this resource becomes prohibitive and finally curtails growth. Only one technology, optical phase conjugation (acting like a mirror for colours), has been shown to offer the prospect of supporting continued internet growth without the need for widespread use of multiple fibres and the associated growth in energy consumption. Very much like Newton's Prisms, optical phase conjugation allows the distortion of one fibre (analogous to spectral spreading in Newton's prisms) to be compensated by a second identical fibre. In PHOS, we will - Optimise the devices which perform this conjugation, both in terms of the assessment of fundamental nonlinear materials and in terms of optimised sub-system configuration.- Demonstrate orders of magnitude increase in the capabilities of optical fibres for both practical point-to-point links with non-uniform span lengths and for optical networks with a plethora of diverse routes. - Verify that the use of optical phase conjugation is cost effective, both in terms of reducing the cost of a network deployment compared to existing products and in terms of enhancing the service provided to customers through higher capacity with lower latency. Furthermore, as optical phase conjugation will transform the capabilities of the network, PHOS will work to remove bottlenecks within the network transmitters and receivers, increasing their performance by an order of magnitude, resulting in 10 times faster connections. The approach of compensating impairments in the optical domain, combined with simplified digital signal processing and enhanced exploitation of fibre bandwidth will reduce the cost, size and power consumption associated with providing 10's of Tbit/s of capacity per optical fibre. If successful, PHOS will enable massively increased data capacities from the employment of Optical Phase Conjugation, giving the UK the most advanced optical communication network and a strong position to become a leading supplier of the technology worldwide.