The industry’s most innovative people 2024 Pu Jian
Organisation: Cailabs Role: Chief Product Officer & Deputy-CEO Based in: Rennes, France Education: PhD in Quantum Optics, Pierre and Marie Curie University
innovation to overcome these scale-up challenges.
What are the biggest challenges or threats to the industry in the next 12 months? How can these be overcome? Securing all the levels of the supply chain in the photonics industry, within the current situation of economic tension and temptation of protectionism from many countries, is the biggest challenge, in my opinion.
What are you currently working on? What will the impact be? Cailabs has recently put a very strong focus on making possible free-space optical communications at high throughput through the atmosphere. We enable faster, more reliable, and safer wireless data transmissions by solving the challenge of reliable laser communications despite atmospheric turbulence. This is the next step for delivering
all the promises of high-speed satellite communications: connecting remote and underserved areas to the internet, improving national security by enabling secure and resilient defence communication, offering better understanding of our world and especially environmental monitoring through Earth observation.
What was the most surprising thing you found in the course of your latest research? This is an overarching theme in Cailabs' history, but it still surprises me every time it happens: I'm always amazed when we find a technological solution by looking for parallels with other industries. At Cailabs we have explored (and are still exploring!) very different markets, from fibre local area networks to laser additive manufacturing, and one of the keys to our success at developing innovative solutions is to be able to exchange ideas, concepts and solutions between these various fields. Solving how to
“Solving how to accurately track a satellite might come from tips and tricks from how to stabilise a femtosecond laser beam for surface texturing”
accurately track a satellite might come from tips and tricks from how to stabilise a femtosecond laser beam for surface texturing!
What’s your biggest research priority in the coming year? Our biggest challenge lies in the industrialisation of our turbulence-proof communication terminals, for two reasons: firstly, it is relatively new for Cailabs to supply a full system and play the role of an integrator, not just a component manufacturer, and we need to adjust our production and operation to this new position in the value chain; secondly, the whole lasercom field is rapidly evolving from scientific missions to commercial deployment, and the whole supply chain may not be adapting as fast as needed. Solving this challenge may not seem
as flashy as researching a new scientific field, but for me it is as exciting since I believe there is also room for creativity and
Which photonics sector do you see as having the greatest opportunity for growth in the next 12 months? The whole space sector is in my opinion a great untapped opportunity for the photonics industry. I'm not only talking about laser communication, which is Cailabs' field, but also all the needs for photonics components and systems in space surveillance, earth observation, etc. There is a temptation from many space companies to reinvent the wheel when there are many great photonics companies that already have the right technology.
What is your proudest moment in photonics so far? There have been so many at Cailabs! The first one was when our customer KDDI achieved the world record in fibre capacity thanks to our spatial multiplexer product Proteus. They managed to get 10Pbps in an optical fibre, and we helped them squeeze all these channels of information in the fibre by using high order spatial modes. Another one would be when we tested our turbulence mitigation technology TILBA-ATMO for the first time with the DLR, the German space agency, and we showed that we had better performance than existing technology (adaptive optics) at high turbulence. And hopefully these moments will be surpassed by the next one that should happen soon, when we will see for the first time a laser communication from a satellite to our optical ground station located at our headquarters.
Where can people find you online? Mostly on LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/ pu-jian/
Where can people see you in person over the next year? I will be at Photonics West for sure!
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