Industrial and Academic Partnerships


1. Industrial partnerships


Companies

Our link with industry is historically strong. Stemming from France-Telecom, the Optics Department of Télécom Bretagne has had a continuous research interaction with France Telecom R&D (formerly CNET) in Lannion. For more than 10 years, the Optics Department has developed fruitful collaborations with Alcatel-CIT and in particular with the Photonics Network Unit URP department in Marcoussis, through various research projects. Recently, we started collaboration with other major telecom equipment manufacturers, such as SAGEM in the field of optical network scaling and modelling. More recently we initiated collaboration with Lucent Technologies (France and Nederland) on PMD compensation management.

SMEs

Our interaction with SMEs has become significant due to the rapid growth of such companies in Brittany in the domain of telecommunications and their historically strong links with Breton research academic teams, as well as the interaction with our own spin-offs.

In the field of conventional optics, the department has collaborations with Micro-Module and Nemoptic. More recently we initiated collaboration with SMEs working in the field of oceanographic sensors such as Martec and NKE, with SmartQuantum and Photline in the field of optical encryption and Dotmobil in the field of automotive applications.

 

2. Academic partnerships

In Brittany

Brittany is the first active region in France  in the field of Telecommunications. The optics department has established collaboration agreements with various research institutions including Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences Appliquées et de Technologie (ENSSAT) in Lannion and the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Rennes, and Ecole Nationale des Ingenieurs de Brest (ENIB) within the Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique (GIS), which is a federative structure gathering academic teams working on Systems and Functions for Telecom Optical Networks.

  • ENSSAT-Photonics Laboratory: (Head: Prof. J.C. Simon). The research activity of this group deals mainly with optical amplification, 2R and 3R regeneration and semi-conductor lasers. A strong research interaction exists with this team through the joint laboratory (CCLO) with researchers from both institutions, in a common structure devoted to planar waveguide and free-space interconnects technologies.
     
  • INSA-Solid State Physics laboratory: (Head: Prof. S. Loualiche and B. Lambert). The main research activity concerns III-V materials such as MQW structures and SLMS, quantum dots fabrication and study. Our interaction with this group concerns the fabrication of VCAs and MQW SLMs.
     
  • ENIB-RESO laboratory: (Head: Prof. J. Le Bihan). The activity of RESO is mainly dedicated to photonic and optoelectronic functions for telecommunications, with emphasis on Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers based systems, Acousto-Optic interaction, Structural properties of optoelectronic devices, and Vision systems. Topics of interest include mixing, switching, amplification, modulation, filtering, modeling for WDM systems. The research team (about thirty people) is very active in both national and international projects, with academic and industrial partners.

 

Abroad

Our partners from abroad are mainly European-based. We present here only institutions with which strong and institutional links exist, involving student exchanges and common research projects. By order of importance:

  • University of Cambridge: (Engineering Department - Photonics & Sensor Group : Head Prof . W.A. Crossland). This group is our brother group in Europe, working in the same area, i.e. mainly dealing with liquid crystal devices for non-display applications and related topics. We have been involved in various European projects and French-British initiatives. We have periodic researchers and students exchanges and visits including the common supervision of PhD students.
  • Technion Institute of Technology: (Electrical Engineering department: Prof. J. Shamir). We have a long-lasting and continuous collaboration with this team in the field of optical information processing, thanks to French-Isreali research programmes such as AFIRST and ARIEL. Prof. J. Shamir spent time in Brest and we are currently both involved in a European project (see LASSAR) dealing with optical inspection.
     
  • Chalmers University of Technology: (Department of microtechnology and nanoscience : Prof. Sven Lagerwal). This group is our brother group in Sweden dealing with LC device-related activities focused on orthoconic AFLCs, analogue electro-optic switching in FLCs, and dynamic diffractive optics applications with special interest on polymer-stabilized orthoconic AFLCs for fast high amplitude and/or phase modulation. Collaboration in the field welding masks exist.
     
  • University of Ottawa (Photonics : Prof. Trevor Hall). 


In addition, the department has well established links with the following universities or research groups for a long time:

  • University of Connecticut (Prof. B. Javidi),
  • University of Colorado in Boulder (Physics Department: Prof. N. Clark and Chemistry Department: Prof. D. Walba),
  • Shanghai Institute of Optics (Prof. L. Liu) in China,

 

  • Télécom Bretagne Alumni
  • UEB
  • Fondation Télécom
  • Institut Mines-Télécom
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