View all research projects
Research project

Airguide Photonics

Project overview

Optical fibres lie at the heart of our increasingly technological society. For example, they support the internet and mobile communications that we all now take for granted, they save lives through medical diagnosis and interventions using fibre-optic endoscopes, and they enable the mass production of a huge array of commercial products through fibre laser based materials processing.

Within our Airguide Photonics research programme we aim to translate Hollow Core Fibre (HCF) technology from the research lab to a deployable fibre technology, unleashing innovative applications across a broad range of science and engineering fields.

“The ORC has been pioneering the development of fibre optics and advancing communications technology for many years and has an impressive record of using research funding to collaborate with academic and industry partners. The AirGuide Photonics programme promises to push at the boundaries once more. We are confident that the research will uncover more discoveries and lead to world-leading innovations.”
Professor Tom Rodden - Deputy Chief Executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Staff

Lead researchers

Professor David Richardson FREng, FRS

Research interests

  • Hollow Core Optical Fibres
  • Optical Communications
  • High Power Fibre Lasers
Connect with David

Email: djr@orc.soton.ac.uk

Other researchers

Professor Sir David Payne KBE CBE FRS FREng

Professor of Photonics

Research interests

  • high-power fibre lasers
  • spun fibres for control of dispersion, now extensively used in undersea fibre cables
  • the Er/Yb cladding-pumped fibre amplifier used for cable television distribution
Connect with Sir David

Email: dnp@orc.soton.ac.uk

Professor Jayanta Sahu

Professorial Fellow-Research
Connect with Jayanta

Email: jks@orc.soton.ac.uk

Professor Periklis Petropoulos

Professor

Research interests

  • Optical communications,
  • All-optical signal processing,
  • Novel fibre and waveguide technologies
Connect with Periklis

Email: pp@orc.soton.ac.uk

Professor Radan Slavik

Professorial Fellow-Research

Research interests

  • In recent years, there have been significant developments in lightwave technologies enabling wide exploitation of optical phase, as exemplified in particular by the dawn of Coherent Optical Communications - the key enabler for the growth in the capacity of the Internet. This is due to many key breakthroughs in laser technology (low-noise low-cost and compact lasers), new revolutionary concepts that have recently  been introduced (e.g., the Optical Frequency Comb, the significance of which was demonstrated by the award of a Nobel Prize in 2005), and significant advances in electronics that, thanks to the increased speeds now possible, can accommodate the processing of very complicated coherent (amplitude + phase) signals.
  • Another exciting field is Hollow Core Optical fibres, which guides ligth in a central hole surrounded by a microstructure that prevents light escaping from the core. Although known for over 20 years, only very recently their fabrication enabled them to use their full potential. 
Connect with Radan

Email: R.Slavik@soton.ac.uk

Professor Francesco Poletti

Professorial Fellow-Research

Research interests

  • Hollow Core Optical Fibres: design and fabrication
  • Optical Communications: high capacity and low latency
  • Novel active and passive optical fibres
Connect with Francesco

Email: frap@orc.soton.ac.uk

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs

1.6 Tbps classical channel coexistence with DV-QKD over Hollow Core Nested Antiresonant Nodeless Fibre (HC-NANF)
O. Alia, R.S. Tessinari, T.D. Bradley, H. Sakr, K. Harrington, J. Hayes, Y. Chen, P. Petropoulos, D.J. Richardson, F. Poletti, G.T. Kanellos, R. Nejabati & D. Simeonidou, 2021
DOI: 10.1109/ECOC52684.2021.9605918
Type: conference
eCPRI radio access network fronthaul physical reach increase by using hollow core fibre
Neil Parkin, Paul Wright, Rich MacKenzie, Asif Iqbal, Michael Brown, David Hall, A. Saljoghei, S. R. Sandoghchi, Radan Slavík, M. Alonso, I. Lang & M. Fake, 2021
DOI: 10.1109/ECOC52684.2021.9605976
Type: conference
Experimental Demonstration of 50-Gb/s/λ O-band CWDM Direct-Detection Transmission over 100-km SMF
Yang Hong, Natsupa Taengnoi, Kyle Bottrill, Naresh Kumar Thipparapu, Yu Wang, Jayanta K. Sahu, David J. Richardson & Periklis Petropoulos, 2021
DOI: 10.1364/ACPC.2021.W1B.2
Type: conference
High spatial-density, cladding-pumped 6-Mode 7-core fiber amplifier for C-band operation
Saurabh Jain, T. Sakamoto, Yongmin Jung, Ian Davidson, Pranabesh Barua, John Hayes, K. Shibahara, T. Mizuno, Yutaka Miyamoto, Kazuhide Nakajima & David J. Richardson, 2021, Optics Express, 29(19), 30675-30681
DOI: 10.1364/OE.428142
Type: article
Theoretical analysis of backscattering in hollow-core antiresonant fibers
Eric Numkam Fokoua, Vincent Michaud-Belleau, Jérôme Genest, Radan Slavík & Francesco Poletti, 2021, APL Photonics, 6(9)
DOI: 10.1063/5.0057999
Type: article