ORC Seminar Series

Speaker: Dr. Benn Thomsen, UCL

Date: 29 April 2009

Time: 2pm

Venue: L/T B B46

Abstract:

Current communications networks only exploit optics for point-to-point transmission of signals and all networking functionality is implemented in the electronic domain. Data now dominates the traffic carried by these networks, this creates new problems for networks and traffic engineering because the demand varies on a fast timescale. Improving the flexibility and granularity in the optical layer will enable networks to more efficiently adapt to this variable demand. Here I will briefly explore some of the proposed optical network architectures that move routing into the optical domain in order to more efficiently utilise the limited transmission resource. The seminar will then focus on the work at UCL in developing physical layer subsystems that will be required to implement such networks.

Biography:

Benn Thomsen received the PhD degree in physics at The University of Auckland, New Zealand in 2001. His PhD research involved the development and characterisation of short optical pulse sources suitable for high-capacity optical communication systems. He then joined the Optoelectronics Research Centre, Southampton University, U.K., as a research fellow in 2002, where he carried our research on ultra-short optical pulse generation and characterisation, optical packet switching based on optically coded labels and all optical pulse processing. He joined the Optical Networks Group at UCL in 2004, and has in 2006 been awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship. He is currently a lecturer in the UCL, Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department and research focuses on the development and implementation of physical layer technologies for dynamic optical networks.

Dr Thomsen has authored/co-authored over 60 papers in journals and conferences in the area of optical communication and optical pulse characterisation.