David Richardson
Organisation: Lumenisity and Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton Role: Chief Scientific Officer and Deputy Director Based in: Southampton, UK Education: PhD, University of Sussex
David Richardson is globally recognised as a leading authority in optical fibre technology and its applications. He has also been instrumental in developing antiresonant hollow core fibres for optical communications. A fellow of both the Royal Society and the
Royal Academy of Engineering, Richardson is a deputy director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre/Zepler Institute and head of the ORC Fibre and Laser Group. He has worked on a variety of optical fibre-related research topics during his career at the ORC including the development of novel forms of optical fibre, telecommunications, high- power fibre lasers and distributed optical fibre sensors. In 2017, Richardson co-founded Lumenisity as a spin-out from the ORC. The company was founded to commercialise breakthroughs in the development of hollow core optical fibre, which he and his team believe can overcome the issue of the telecom fibre limit. Lumenisity's CoreSmart Nested Anti-Resonant Nodeless Fibre (NANF) hollow core fibre has already been trialled and network operators including BT/ Openreach and Comcast use it in their networks. On the development of the technology,
Richardson said: ‘Whilst early forms of hollow core fibre were developed decades ago, the recent emergence of antiresonant hollow core fibres (for example, NANF) over the past few years with attenuation levels comparable to, if not lower than, those of solid optical fibres across most of the optical spectrum is a massive advance. As well as ultra-low attenuation, these fibres have a range of other unique and useful properties including ultra-low nonlinearity, low latency, low and flat dispersion, low-backscatter, low environmental sensitivities, wide bandwidths etc. I see the development of applications that can leverage these new fibres becoming a big area in the coming years.’ Richardson also works across a
number of research areas in optical fibre telecommunications and high-power fibre lasers. He cited parallelisable optical fibre systems as a key topic in future research. ‘Both optical fibre communication and
high-power fibre laser systems are now operating at close to their fundamental physical limits in terms of per-fibre data carrying capacity and power generation respectively. To scale capacity and power substantially further will require
operating multiple systems in parallel, either independently or as a collective. The best and most cost-effective approaches to implement, manage, manufacture and exploit such parallel systems in both of these application contexts will become increasingly important themes in the coming years.’ Another key technology is wideband optical fibre systems: ‘Optical transmission fibres and amplifiers operable over increasing bandwidth have emerged in recent years – providing a potential route to increasing capacity in communications systems, as well as providing new fibre laser and sensing opportunities. Further development of wideband components and systems will consequently receive increasing focus.’ A diverse selection of specialisms is
not without its challenges, and one of the biggest of these for Richardson has been pushing the minimum attenuation of hollow core fibre below that of any previous solid silica fibre (in the low-loss C&L bands). However, he believes this ‘is now firmly within sight, with rapid and encouraging progress being made’. In his 30-year career, Richardson has
worked with many supportive colleagues, both senior and junior. In particular, he cited Sir David Payne, the director of the ORC, as a huge influence and help throughout his
career, with the caveat: ‘In all honesty, the key person has been my wife Julia for her constant love, support and patience through the inevitable career highs and lows.’ Such lows include the loss of the fibre
fabrication facility at the University of Southampton after a major fire in 2005, after which it took almost five years to rebuild the facility and to regain lost capabilities. Richardson managed to maintain research focus and keep his research team together during this time.
He said he has had the privilege of
working with and getting to know a wide array of talented people during his career, so naming one future R&D “rock star” in his field would be nearly impossible. ‘If pushed,’ he said, ‘I would have to point to my close colleague Professor Francesco Poletti, whose work on hollow core fibres, particularly NANFs in recent years, has been absolutely outstanding with potential for disruptive impact in a number of disciplines.’ His key advice for those starting out
a career in photonics is: ‘Choose your research topics carefully, work with the best people and try to keep your focus on the longer term, highest-impact goals.’ Find Richardson online at southampton.
ac.uk/people/5wygg6/professor-david- richardson#about. He plans to attend ECOC 2023, from 1-5 October, in Glasgow.
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