Corning grand prize for ORC student

ORC student, Eric Numkan Fokoua, has won the coveted grand prize of the 2012 Corning Outstanding Student Paper competition at this year's OFC Conference in Los Angeles. 

The award recognises student leaders in the field of optical communications: finalists are judged on innovation, research excellence and presentation skills. 

Selected from 362 submissions, Eric’s paper relates his research on Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM) in hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres. He explains:

“In recent years, SDM has emerged as one potential solution to the predicted capacity crunch in current telecom systems. By implementing SDM in hollow-core photonic bandgap fibres, we exploit the benefits of low optical nonlinearity and potential low loss that result from light propagation in a hollow-core. One of the first steps is to fully understand the properties of these fibres and in particular the mechanisms responsible for loss. At the conference, we presented a method that accurately describes light scattering at the many air-glass surfaces within the fibre.

“The Corning student paper competition at the OFC is a big deal for students working in Optical Communications and it was simply amazing to win. I am grateful to my supervisors Dr Francesco Poletti and Professor David Richardson for their support and guidance, as well as our marvellous fabrication team.”