Profile: He graduated from Tsinghua University and has a master's degree in communications and electronic systems from the Academy of Posts and Telecommunications. He has won 3 second prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and has published more than 100 papers and 9 works. Wei Leping was formerly the CTO of China Telecom. Currently, he is the executive deputy director of the Communication Science and Technology Commission of the MII and the chairman of Technology Steering Committee of China Telecom. He is mainly responsible for the research and decision-making of the technology development strategy of the industry and the company.

Abstract: Describe the evolution trends and challenges of optical networks.

Profile: Alan Willner received a Ph.D. (1988) in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, was a Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Labs, and is currently a Distinguished Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Steven & Kathryn Sample Chaired Professor of Engineering at the Univ. of Southern California. Prof. Willner has received the following honors: Member of U.S. National Academy of Engineering; International Fellow of U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering; Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House; Ellis Island Medal of Honor; IEEE Sumner Technical Field Award; Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Packard Foundation Fellowships; Fellow of National Academy of Inventors; Institution of Eng. & Tech. (IET) J.J. Thomson Medal; Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement from Columbia Eng. Alumni Assoc.; Optical Society (OSA) Forman Engineering Excellence Award; Honorary Professor of Huazhong Univ. of Science & Technology; SPIE President's Award; Eddy Paper Award from Pennwell Publications for Best Contributed Technical Article; and IEEE Globecom Best Paper Award. He is a Fellow of AAAS, IEEE, IET, OSA and SPIE. Prof. Willner's activities include: Co-Chair of U.S. National Academies' Study on Optics & Photonics; President of OSA; President of IEEE Photonics Society; Editor-in-Chief of OSA Optics Letters, IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology, and IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics; and General Co-Chair of Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics.

Abstract: Optical communications have enjoyed tremendous impact over the past 50 years. Relatively soon after the concrete proposal of optical fiber communications was reported and the low-loss fiber invented, fiber-based communications dramatically impacted the way society transfers information. However, there are other key areas that were also envisioned ~50 years ago but are only recently emerging due to enhanced capacity needs and critical innovations. This talk will highlight 3 examples: 1. Free-space optical communications: As opposed to RF, optical links have high directionality and large bandwidth. There is great excitement in the recent emergence of deployed free-space optical links, be they through air or outer-space. Moreover, due to the extremely high losses of RF, even underwater links in the blue-green are gaining significant interest. 2. Non-conventional wavelengths: Fiber systems are overwhelmingly in the near-IR, whereas free-space links can take advantage of a much wider frequency range, from THz to visible. Such systems may utilize: (a) native high-speed communications components at other frequencies, and/or (b) wavelength-band conversion of near-IR channels to other regions. 3. Optical signal processing (OSP): OSP has long held the promise of high-speed operation and the avoidance of inefficient optical-electrical-optical conversion. Although OSP deployment has been limited, advances in PICs, power efficiency and multi-wavelength operation may soon enable the emergence of OSP for high-performance functions.

Profile: Dr. Li is currently a professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McMaster University in Canada. His research work is in the area of integrated photonic and optoelectronic devices with a main focus on semiconductor lasers and amplifiers. He has authored or coauthored over 300 journal and conference papers and is the inventor of over 30 patents. He is also the author of the book “Optoelectronic Devices: Design, Modeling, and Simulation” and a contributing author of several other book chapters on semiconductor DFB lasers. He co-founded Apollo Photonics in 1990s and developed an “Advanced Laser Diode Simulator”, one of the company's major software products. For his research work on semiconductor lasers while he was working in China in the 1980s, he twice received the 1st Degree Award for Science and Technology Achievement in 1987 and 1988, respectively.

Abstract: This presentation will focus on the most recently developed technologies for a high-speed laser/modulator for short reach optical data links, with an emphasis on directly modulated lasers (DMLs). Starting from a review on the upper limit of the modulation speed achievable by uniform grating DFB DMLs, this talk will show a variety of advanced designs with appended cavity structures aimed at raising the modulation bandwidth and their corresponding device performance.

Profile: Takehiro Tsuritani received his M.E. and Ph.D. in electronics engineering from Tohoku University, Miyagi, Japan, in 1997 and 2006. He joined Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD) Company, Limited (currently KDDI Corporation), Tokyo, Japan, in 1997. Since 1998, he has been with their Research and Development Laboratories (currently KDDI Research, Inc.) and has been engaged in research on high-capacity long-haul wavelength division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission systems and dynamic photonic networking. He is currently an executive director of KDDI Research, Inc., and is responsible for the photonic network research division. He is a Fellow of the IEICE and a senior member of the IEEE.

Abstract: The current R&D status of spatial division multiplexing (SDM) transmission technologies using multi-core fibers and multimode fibers will be presented. Potential applications in communications and future challenges will also be discussed.

Profile: Hideaki Murayama is a professor at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, the University of Tokyo and a member of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Naval Architectures of Japan, the Japan Society for Composite Materials, the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, and the Japan Society of Maintenology. He is also a member of IEC SC86C/WG2 for fiber optic sensor standardization. His research topics are structural health monitoring with fiber-optic sensors and composite structures. He received his B.E., M.E., and Eng.D at the University of Tokyo in 1996, 1998, and 2001, respectively.

Abstract: Fiber-optic sensors offer several advantages: thin and lightweight, immunity to EMI, durability, and the capability to be embedded into composite materials. Of note, the ability of distributed sensing to return the value of a measurand as a function of the linear position along an optical fiber is useful for structural health monitoring. Fiber-optic sensors have been applied to actual structures, such as bridges, vehicles, ocean development equipment, and reusable energy generation devices, and has demonstrated the ability to offer long-term monitoring data. As industrial applications become more widespread, the development of an international standard for fiber-optic sensors is required. In this presentation, fiber-optic sensor applications, such as structural health monitoring, are shown, as is the standardization for fiber-optic sensors.

Profile: Professor Jong Min Kim was formerly Senior Vice President and Vice President in the Samsung Electronics Corporate R&D Centre, South Korea for 17 years. He is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He was the Chair of Electrical Engineering at University of Oxford from 2012 to 2015. Professor Kim had previously held a variety of senior technology positions at the Samsung Group including OLED, QLED, LED, PDP, FED, flexible, 3D displays, materials, energy and electronics research/developments. He had managed major projects at Samsung for 17 years. His research is described in more than total 600 papers, including 350 journal papers (including 16 Nature/Science, and Nature family journals). He was responsible for a number of world first inventions: carbon nanotube (reported variously in Science, Nature, etc. One paper has been cited more than 2,000 times), transparent and flexible graphene electrodes (Nature 2009, with more than 15,000 citations), quantum dot based LEDs and displays (Nature Photonics, Cover Article, 2009 and 2011, Nature Comm'13), micro rod LED on glass (Nature Photonics, Cover Article, 2011), and many others. At Samsung, he initiated QLED and OLED projects for commercialization.

Abstract: Quantum dot display will be presented with new materials, processes, device architectures, and full system integration. The physics and mechanism for future applications will be presented.

Profile: Martin Schell received the Dipl.Phys. degree from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 1989 and the Dr.rer.nat. degree from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, in 1993. In 1995, he was Visiting Researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan. From 1996 to 2000, he was Management Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. From 2000 to 2005, he was Product Line Manager, and then Head of Production and Procurement, at Infineon Fiber Optics, Berlin. He is currently Director of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, Berlin, and Professor for optic and optoelectronic integration with the Technical University of Berlin. He served as board member of the European Photonics Industry Consortium from 2015 to 2021, and as member of the Public Policy Committee of the Optical Society from America (OSA) from 2016 to 2018. He is Chairman of the Competence Network Optical Technologies Berlin/Brandenburg (OpTecBB), and Member of the Photonics21 Board of Stakeholders.

Abstract: Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have become a key technology for communications and sensing. The talk will give an overview of Fraunhofer HHI's recent activities on PICs for classical communication, QKD, Terahertz sensing, and Terahertz communications.