Optical Communication Infrastructure Facility

Optical communication techniques, including fiber optics and lasers, are the workhorses of the Internet and high-capacity computing. Meeting the computing and telecommunications needs of the next two decades will require advances across a broad front of R&D, including optical signal generation, transmission, switching and routing, data storage and displays, and intelligent and seamless networking. Although institutions and companies have access to such rapidly growing, high-speed global telecommunication networks, the infrastructure is not yet in place to provide the individual user access that fully exploits the power of light. Additional research is necessary to be able to further develop optical communications at cost effective and high reliability levels. The Optical Communications Infrastructure Facility will include tunable communication laser systems, fiber fusion splicing systems, network analyzers, optical spectrum analyzers, optical fiber measurement and characterization systems, optical polarization analyzers, and supporting instrumentation and subsystems. We also have a dedicated research fiber network connecting our Center to our CMOT partners (WCU and Clemson).