Whether we’re viewing YouTube videos or downloading large data sets in the workplace—the contemporary IT consumer’s hunger for remote, rich data is quickly gobbling up bandwidth and starting to strain the capacity of current optical-fiber networks to support the need for ever-higher data speeds. Bandwidth demand is expected to grow by 40 percent between 2008 and 2018.
MaRS Innovation has entered into an agency agreement with the University of Toronto to act as commercialization lead on a unique laser technology to capture the market demand. The inventors are electrical engineer Professor Joyce Poon and graduate student Wesley Sacher.
Through early proof-of-concept work, the inventors have already demonstrated that there is light at the end of this particular “tunnel”—that their patent-pending method of modulating (pulsing) light through optical fibers will push more optical data down those fibers faster and will also vary laser output as required, to reliably give us access to the flow of rich data we seek. Their technology modulates laser light and improves on current laser limitations, which can only drive data up to a certain speed, and it does so in smaller devices that consume less power.
In accepting this disclosure of U of T intellectual property, MI is ensuring that early-stage technology development—often the greatest obstacle in commercialization—is overcome. MI has completed the market analysis and business case for this novel laser technology, has worked with the inventors to file a patent application and is helping with the critical next steps: funding a proof-of-principle (POP) project and finding an existing company, a specialist in the field, to partner on technology development. The POP involves fabricating a highly sophisticated compound semiconductor device, including the laser and its modulator.
Says MI President and CEO Dr. Rafi Hofstein: “In an optical-device market that is once again growing, the potential value of this technology is very large. The goal is for U of T to license this invention as an integral component of nothing less than a new generation of optical transceivers, to revolutionize what we perceive and receive, and how we communicate.”
