Laser telecommunications developers receive ERC grant

A team headed by Prof Sergei Turitsyn at Aston University has just been awarded a €1.7m (£1.4m) grant to develop the technology.

‘The project is focused on a completely different approach to laser science. Our lasers can be considered not as a source of radiation but rather as a very special type of transmission medium,’ Turitsyn told The Engineer.

With the huge growth of internet traffic, demands on communication systems are increasing significantly.

The proposed technology offers a new platform for improving the speed, reliability, security and capacity of future optical communication systems.

In 2009 Turitsyn’s team created the world’s longest laser at 270km with no loss of amplification, thereby providing a proof of concept for laser telecommunications.

With the funding in place, the team is now looking at ways of using existing telecommunication components for a new class of ultra-long lasers.

This will hinge on developing what are known as random lasers, which use a highly disordered gain media rather than the conventional setup of two mirrors with a gain medium in between.