| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/R94510/01 |
| Title: |
FARADAY FAST TRACK PROPOSAL: A DIFFUSION ANALYSIS APPROACH TO WAVE PROPAGATION ALONG OPTICAL MULTIMODE FIBRES |
| Principal Investigator: |
Abrahams, Professor ID |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Mathematics |
| Organisation: |
University of Manchester, The |
| Scheme: |
Faraday (PreFEC) |
| Starts: |
01 October 2003 |
Ends: |
31 December 2005 |
Value (£): |
103,199
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Continuum Mechanics |
Optical Communications |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
| Panel Date | Panel Name | Outcome |
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30 May 2002
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Mathematics Prioritisation Panel May 02
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Deferred
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Fibre optic cables are now ubiquitous in their application to the telecommunications world. Such cables are electromagnetic waveguides, of dielectric structure, that transport optical pulses at wavelengths usually in the near infrared portions of the spectrum. Optical waveguides can be divided into two types: singlemode and multimode fibres. For a fibre with lossless dielectric, the former allow only one wave mode to be guided without loss whereas the latter may permit many hundreds or even thousands of such modes. This research proposal seeks to investigate wave propagation in multimode fibres illuminated by coherent sources such as lasers which can excite just a narrow band of modes. These can be utilised to increase substantially the fibre bandwidth as long as the signal transmitted in each mode can be reconstructed from the output. Ray-tracing methods are not useful in this regard, as accurate information on the wave phase as well as amplitude is required on each and every ray. However, the implementation of a full modal analysis or other complete/rigorous method is also ruled out for multimode fibres because of the computational overhead. Fortunately, if only general properties of the guiding are required, such as total bend loss, scattering losses due to small imperfections and small variations in core radius or material dielectric constant (refractive index), then progress can be made. The crucial assumption in the proposed analysis is that, for multimode fibres with both short and long range imperfections, the density of modes approaches a continuum set so that the nearest neighbour coupling can be approximated by a diffusion-like mechanism governed by a differential equation of diffusion type.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.man.ac.uk |