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The OptCom group has
recently acquired access to a new experimental facility called PhotonLab,
which is a joint venture between Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Mario
Boella.
PhotonLab is a shared facility and 5 groups cooperate
in tight coordination within it:
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The OptCom Group
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The Optical Networking Group
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The Optoelectronics and Components Group
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The Electro-Magnetics Group
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The Materials Group
PhotonLab is a 250
square meters laboratory that includes an optical system and network
experiment area, plus a clean room, an electronics lab, a machine shop and a
dark room. The whole facility is in filtered air, with the clean room being
class 1000. The whole floor is large concrete blocks suspended on giant
coils to isolate the lab from external vibrations.
The system experiment
section is equipped with state-of-the-art Test and Measurement equipment,
encompassing a 12.5 Gbit/s BER tester, two 50 GHz oscilloscopes, several
Optical Spectrum Analyzers, Optical and Electrical Network Analyzers up to
40 GHz, ten EDFAs, 500 km of long-haul-grade Truewave Fiber, and hundreds of
optical and electro-optical components acquired through various
donations from Agilent, CISCO and Marconi. 40 Gbit/s equipment is currently
being evaluated for acquisition within 2004.
For a very detailed database of the
instruments that are available in the lab, please
follow this link.
As a results the OptCom
Group is well equipped to carry out all sorts of experiments within the
scope of this proposal. In addition PhotonLab has just acquired access to 8
rings for a total of 240 km of dark installed fiber in the whole city of
Torino, supplied by the operator
FASTWEB. The rings go
through busy avenues, over bridges, along railway tracks, through
residential as well as industrial areas. They also go through several POPs
of the operator. This testbed enables actual field measurements to be
carried out from within the lab, where the dark fiber is terminated, which
is something of great value to give significance to the experimental results
of the proposed project.
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