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Antiresonant Hollow Optical Fibres for a Quantum Leap in Data and Optical Power Transmission

Objective

Fibre optics has revolutionised telecommunications, enabled the widespread diffusion of the internet and profoundly impacted industrial manufacturing, metrology, medical endoscopy and structural sensing, to name but a few. In many applications however, fibres are now being operated very close to fundamental physical limits of the glass that forms their core, and this is already providing hard limits, for example, to the maximum data capacity or optical intensity that can be transmitted through them. A transformative new technological step is required to help increasing the information capacity and power delivery capability of optical fibres to keep up with the 1.5dB/year growth in global data traffic and with the 2dB/year raise in laser output power. Air guiding hollow core fibres can provide a natural solution, but the state of the art technology suffers from conceptual physical limitations that bound their minimum loss, maximum information capacity, and transmitted optical power and energy. This proposal addresses these global challenges by developing the ‘ultimate’ hollow core optical fibre technology based on nested antiresonant nodeless fibres. Based on a recent discovery of the PI yet to find experimental demonstration, these fibres exploit antiresonances and multiple coherent reflections from the glass membranes to achieve, unlike any other known air-guiding optical waveguide, simultaneous minimisation of surface scattering and leakage loss. By targeting a 10 times increase in data capacity and power handling and a 5 times reduction in transmission loss as compared to state-of-the-art technology, all in an ultra-low nonlinearity fibre with excellent modal purity and spectral transparency, the outcomes of this project have the potential to revolutionise telecommunications 45 years after the development of ultra-low loss glass optical fibres and to produce a step-change in many industrial and scientific high power laser delivery applications.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2015-CoG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 749 639,00
Address
Highfield
SO17 1BJ SOUTHAMPTON
United Kingdom

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Region
South East (England) Hampshire and Isle of Wight Southampton
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 749 639,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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