An Interview with Professor Ian White by Helen Dyball

In a recent Insight Letter published in Electronics Letters, Professor Ian White, Head of Photonics Research at the University of Cambridge, along with David Cunningham of Avago Technologies, theoretically showed that ever-increasing data rates could soon present problems for existing networks using multimode fibre. Helen Dyball talks to Professor White to find out more.

Professor Ian White is currently van Eck Professor of Engineering, Chair of the Council, School of Technology and Head of the Photonic Research Group in the Engineering Department at Cambridge. He has built up a substantial research activity in the field of optoelectronics and optical communications. Highlights of Ian White´s research have included: the development of the first all-optical laser diode flip flop, the first negative chirp electro-absorption modulator and the invention of a technique for transmitting radio frequency signals over long distances of multimode optical fibre. Several of these advances have already made commercial impact, the offset launch technique for enhancing the bandwidth of optical fibre links having already been adopted within Gigabit Ethernet standard. He has also chaired the channel model sub-task force of the IEEE 10 GbE LRM standard.