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78 nanotimes EU-Projects
Nanoparticle Test Handbook
A new handbook has been published under Empa leadership which aims to unify European standards in nanoparticle research. It contains detailed regulations for the manufacture and analysis of specific nanoparticles in the laboratory environment, placing research work in this field on a unified foundation and enabling valid comparisons to be made between studies.
http://www.nanosafetycluster.eu/news/51/15/Quality-Handbook.html
http://www.nanopartikel.info/files/content/dana/Dokumente/NEWS/NANOMMUNE_QHB_FINAL_2011.pdf
Phase-Sensitive Optical Data Transmission: a New Frontier
A pioneering approach to data transmission, supported by EU funding, promises to increase the capacity, range and efficiency of fibre-optic networks. Traditionally, commercial fibre-optic communications have relied on encoding the data in the amplitude of a light beam (varying the intensity of the light to transmit information). Placing devices called “Erbium-doped fibre amplifiers” at intervals along the fibre to periodically boost signal strength overcomes propagation loss, but provides a relatively inefficient use of fibre potential. Using the phase, rather than amplitude, of a light beam to encode data can potentially offer exponential increase in the information carrying capacity. But the extent of the improvement possible is limited: due to noise added during optical amplification and cross-talk between the different wavelength channels caused by non-linear optical interactions.
"Fibre-optic cable has huge data carrying capability and commercial systems still have orders of magnitude excess capacity but in recent years we have started to hit the practical limits in laboratory research using existing transmission techniques and conventional optical amplifier technology," explains Professor David Richardson, Deputy Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.
"Phase-sensitive amplification" (PSA) was identified theoretically as long ago as the 1960s as a potential means to amplify optical signals without adding noise.More recently it was demonstrated that it offered a means to remove phase noise (and to a lesser extent amplitude noise) from optical signals degraded during transmission – a function known as "optical regeneration." Realising that improvements in optical component technology meant that a practical PSA might now be possible, a team of researchers from eight partner organisations in seven countries launched the "Phase-sensitive amplifier systems and optical regenerators, and their applications" (Phasors) project. Supported by EUR2.7 million in funding from the European Commission, their work has helped phase-sensitive fibre amplifiers make the leap from theoretical curiosities to practical devices.
http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/rcn/87606_en.html