Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf, others at optics press luncheon

Record-breaking optical transmission, microfluidic fiber optics among topics

Speakers will present some of the newest and most interesting topics in the science of fiber optics at a press luncheon to take place at the 2002 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibit (OFC2002) in Anaheim, California.

The luncheon will convene Tuesday, March 19 from noon to 2:00PM in Room 206 of the Anaheim Convention Center. Reporters wishing to attend should fill out the reply form at the end of this release or contact Rory Richards (rrichard@aip.org, 301-209-3088)

OFC 2002 PRESS LUNCHEON
Room 206
Anaheim Convention Center
Tuesday, March 19
Noon - 2:00 PM

OPTICS AND THE INTERNET
Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President of Internet Architecture and Technology, Worldcom
Contact: Carla Lafever (clafever@mci.net)

Vinton Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet, and is widely known as a "Father of the Internet." In 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his partner, Dr. Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet. Cerf's team of architects and engineers currently design advanced networking frameworks including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice, and video services for business and consumer use.

TRANSMISSION RECORDS IN THE TERABITS
Venkataraman Swaminathan, Agere Systems
Contact: Glen Haley (glenhaley@agere.com)

As demand for bandwidth increases, so has research into pushing the limits of fiber optic transmission rates. Dr. Swaminathan will discuss an announcement by Agere Systems that, to their knowledge, they have set a new record in transmission capacity: 3.2 terabits (trillion bits) per second (Tb/s) over a 1,000km fiber using DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing). DWDM is attractive for future optical networks because systems take up less floor space and consume less power, resulting in lower system costs. In DWDM systems, different colors of light signals are combined or "multiplexed" and transmitted through a single optical fiber, allowing transmission capacity to be increased by several orders of magnitude. The transmission being reported by Agere consisted of 40 channels operating at 80Gb/s each, and was made possible using the state-of the art components and subsystems.

PHOTONICS INNOVATION: MICROFLUIDIC FIBER OPTICS
Robert Windeler (rsw@lucent.com), Lucent

Holey fibers, consisting of arrays of hollow channels that run the length of optical fibers, provide transmission characteristics that promise a host of intriguing applications. Inserting fluid into holey fibers has now opened the door to a whole new class of devices with tunable transmission characteristics - namely Microfluidic Fiber Optics. A small portion of fluid placed in a holey fiber serves as a liquid plug that can be moved along a fiber's length. By positioning the liquid in specially designed fibers that have actuators and pumps incorporated on their surfaces, researchers can dynamically tune devices, such as wavelength-selective attenuators and switchable broadband attenuators. Dr. Windeler will delve into the possibility that the unusual innovation has the potential to provide essential technologies for next generation optical networks.

MICRO-RING RESONATORS: THE FIRST POLYMER MICROPHOTONIC DEVICES
Payam Rabiei (rabiei@usc.edu) and William Steier (steier@usc.edu), University of Southern California

Researchers at the University of Southern California have used polymers to make micro-photonic components. Micro-photonics is the combination of very small optical components on a chip. The group constructed a microscopic polymer version of an electro-optic modulator, a device that employs electric fields to switch optical signals on and off. To the researchers' knowledge, this is the first demonstration of polymers in microphotonics and the first demonstration of a micro-photonic electro-optic modulator. These polymer ring resonators can vary in diameter from 40-400 millionths of a meter. An advantage of polymer components is that they are potentially inexpensive and relatively easy to manufacture. Also, it is possible to incorporate them into standard CMOS electronic circuits, making them compatible with present technology.

PRESS LUNCHEON REPLY FORM
OFC 2002, March 19, 2002
Please return this form to Rory Richards at rrichard@aip.org or by fax at 301-209-0846

___Please sign me up for the OFC press luncheon.
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___I cannot attend but please send me additional materials as they become available.

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For more information please contact Rory Richards, American Institute of Physics, rrichard@aip.org, 301-209-3088