Projects consist of a report (~20 pages) There follows a non-exhaustive list of suggested topics

 Projects consist of a report (~20 pages) There follows a non-exhaustive list of suggested topics:

Advances in:

1. The Optical Link (Physical Layer)

1.1. The Optical Transmitter

1.1.1. Sources – Novel pulsed / tuneable / narrow linewidth lasers, frequency combs, single photon sources

1.1.2. External modulation circuit architectures & technology

1.1.3. Transmitter-side Digital Signal Processing (DSP)

1.2. Optical Amplifiers

1.2.1. Rare earth doped fibre amplifiers and lasers

1.2.2. Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

1.3. The Optical Receiver

1.3.1. Photodiodes – high power linear photodiodes, avalanche / single photon detectors;

1.3.2. Demodulation / clock recovery / decision circuit architectures & technology

1.3.3. Receiver-side Digital Signal Processing (DSP) – polarisation diversity / demultiplexing /, chromatic dispersion and polarisation mode dispersion compensation, carrier recovery, demodulation

1.3.4. Receivers for data centre interconnects e.g. Stokes receivers (self-referenced coherent receivers without local oscillators).

1.4. The Optical Channel

1.4.1. Wireless optical communications (Free space optical systems)

1.4.2. Wired optical communications (Dielectric Waveguides)

1.4.2.1. Dispersion engineered fibres

1.4.2.2. Photonic crystal fibres

1.4.2.3. Multi-core fibres / few moded fibres

1.4.3. Channel models, impairments & their compensation

1.4.3.1. Intensity Modulation Direct Detection Systems – chromatic dispersion, polarisation mode dispersion

1.4.3.2. Monomode Coherent transmission systems – polarisation drift, chromatic dispersion, optical nonlinearity

1.4.3.3. Multimode Coherent transmission systems – Optical multiple input / multiple output (MIMO)

1.5. Multiplexing & Demultiplexing

1.5.1. Time Division Multiplexing

1.5.2. Wavelength Division Multiplexing (Frequency Division Multiplexing)

1.5.3. Space Division Multiplexing

1.6. Advanced modulation formats

1.6.1. Multi-level amplitude & phase

1.6.2. Multi-dimensional formats

1.6.3. Spectral efficiency, probabilistic shaping, OFDM, Nyquist pulses.

1.7. Error control coding, framing, serialiser-deserialisers (SERDES)

2. The Optical Network

2.1. Optical routing & switching – time, wavelength, space, path computation – wavelength selective switches & reconfigurable optical add-drop modules, optical space switches, all-optical wavelength convertors versus transponders / muxponders

2.2. Reliability of optical networks, protection & Restoration

2.3. Elastic optical networks / flex-grid / bit-rate variable transceivers

2.4. Fundamental limits to capacity

2.5. Extending Software Defined Networking (SDN) to the Optical Transport Network (OTN)

2.6. Data centre growth, Internet of everything, smart-cities, big data, security & privacy

2.7. Autonomous networks & artificial intelligence

2.8. Performance modeling, economic modeling, and simulations of optical networks

3. Wireless access

3.1. 5G and Photonics

3.1.1. RF over Fibre

3.1.2. Photonic generation of mm-wave carriers

3.1.3. Photonic front haul & backhaul

3.1.4. Fibre supported massive distributed antenna systems & massive MIMO

3.2. Optical Wireless

4. Energy efficient optical networks / optical power delivery / renewable energy harvesting / remote rural broadband access solutions

5. Optical communications technology for non-telecom applications

5.1. Microwave Photonics – photonic generation, processing, transport of microwaves, optoelectronic oscillators

5.2. Optical fibre sensing

5.3. Biophotonics

5.4. Astrophotonics

6. Device & new materials technologies

6.1. Speciality fibres, Fibre Bragg gratings

6.2. Nano photonics – metamaterials, left handed materials & negative refraction, hyperbolic materials, photonic crystal materials

6.3. Plasmonics, graphene & related materials, quantum devices

7. Si Photonics for photonic integration

7.1. CMOS compatible material integration platforms

7.2. Passive integrated components – photonic waveguides, multi-waveguide arrays, branch-join/ directional / multimode interference couplers, arrayed waveguide routers, fibre- waveguide coupling, polarisation optics, approaches to polarisation insensitive functions, isolators.

7.3. Active integrated components – lasers, amplifiers, modulators, detectors for Si Photonics; non-reciprocal devices, non-linear optics;

8. Optical Communications at data-rates beyond electronics

8.1. Discrete space optical processors, universal linear optics, perfect optical systems using imperfect components

8.2. Optical methods of sampling, A/D & D/A conversion, clock recovery…

9. Quantum optical communication, quantum computing

10. What ever happened to:

10.1. Soliton transmission systems

10.2. Optical packet switching

10.3. Digital optical systems

…………………………………………..

 Guidelines on writing a term paper  

 What is a term paper?

A term paper is a written original work discussing a topic in detail, usually several typed pages in length; accounts for a major proportion of the grade; and, is due at the end of a term. The term paper should be a work of scholarship. It does not have to contain original research.

Scholarship: learning; knowledge acquired by study; the academic attainments of a scholar

Scholar: a learned or erudite person, especially one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject.

Scientists and engineers make extensive use of secondary sources that is textbooks & review papers or other works of scholarship that rely on primary sources for the original work. The secondary sources are used because they add value to the primary sources. The reader is provided with more value than they would obtain by consulting the primary resources directly through the provision to the reader of services by the author. A variety of services are possible that might involve:

 Research and investigation.

Seek out obscure or hard-to-find material, and unify it into a clear presentation.

 Synthesis.

Draw together diverse material to show patterns and relations.

 Organising.

Give logical continuity and structure to diverse materials.

 Analysis.

Provide critical analysis in which arguments are examined for evidence, validity, logic, and flaws.

 Clarification.

Make evidence and arguments clearer to the reader. Elucidate difficult material.

 Contextualisation.

Show how a specific subject fits into a given context, relates to another field, or relates to historic precedents.

 Critical reasoning.

Distinguish between the relevant & the important to a particular question. Discard the irrelevant however important and highlight the evidence that is both significant and relevant.

 Drawing conclusions & making a judgement.

Show how the preponderance of evidence and reason favours one side or another in a debate on a controversial subject.

Researching the literature

One must have a genuine understanding of the subject matter to effectively communicate to one’s readers. The latter comes from reading everything one can find related to the chosen topic. How much? It is too easy to become trapped in an infinite regress; reading the background to the subject and then the background to the background, and so on. However, one may expect to have grasped the content of 10 solid references. To find these ten, one may have looked at or skimmed 50 to 100 papers, but not all of them are likely to merit specific reference. Many have no relevant material, or nothing unique, not found in the other references. Some are useful only to lead to better sources. To ensure the relevant literature is

Guidelines on writing a term paper

found one must search the periodical literature and the scientific journals. In particular, use the specialised electronic databases of scientific literature that libraries now offer. Searching the Internet can be a useful source of leads but do not rely on it as your only source of evidence. The Internet is not subject to the standards of peer review and a link to its content may have little life – it is not an archival medium.

Writing the paper

After a thorough review of the literature, one must organise the subject matter in one’s mind appropriately supplemented by notes, and plan a clear, logical, and structured exposition. Only then can one sit at a computer terminal and begin to write whole sentences and paragraphs. Initially compose without the benefit of your source material. Then, when the form and content look good, consult your references again for details, facts, figures, specific references, etc.

Finally, take care to proof-read your paper carefully for correct spelling and grammar. Read it critically for form and content. Imagine yourself as the instructor, reading the paper to find its deficiencies, and to suggest ways it could be improved. Look especially for ‘stumble points’, those places where the reader is forced to stop and re-read something to make sense of it. Fix any you find. A mark of good style is ease of reading. If you can read something aloud without stumbling or hesitating, that is a good sign. This is another service you provide the reader. If one finds as one reads that one is being lulled to sleep, the prose may need attention. Each sentence, each word, must have a purpose in conveying a specific idea or a feeling. Purge vague expressions. Substitute words with specific, precise and clear meaning—the meaning you intend to convey, not some other meaning.

Plagiarism

At this point in graduate school, one must have come across the term “plagiarism”.

According to Merriam-Webster, plagiarism is “to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source”.

This means that the writing must be original and not copied word-for-word from a reference. Paraphrasing is allowed. However, the definition of paraphrasing must be clear. Changing one or two words in a sentence without giving reference to the original article constitutes plagiarism and not paraphrasing.

Discussing your ideas with your peers is allowed. However, copying another person’s work or data is plagiarism. If one needs to use someone else’s data, due acknowledgement should be provided and the extent to which the data has been used should be clearly stated.

The Student Academic Success Service can help you improve your writing skills and avoid plagiarism:

http://sass.uottawa.ca/en/writing

Format

Term papers should have a length of ~20 pages with regular report formatting or ~10 pages with two column format and should submitted as a PDF file. For the two-column format use the IEEE journal style:

www.ieee.org/documents/trans_jour.docx

Guidelines on writing a term paper

the term paper should be structured into sections that might include:

1. Introduction

o Motivation for investigation of your chosen project

o Applications

o Brief outline of the paper

2. Background

o Establish a background for the reader by conducting literature survey.

o Establish the problem clearly and concisely.

o Appropriate citations must be included.

3. Method/design techniques

o If you are introducing a new method/ design include it in this section.

o If this is a review paper, include how other people have solved the issue in the past.

o Include equations, tables and figures as required

o Simulation methodology and pseudocode if any should be included in this section. If you have data or code that requires more than half a page include it in the Appendix section.

4. Result and discussion

o If you have any new results discuss them in this section.

o If this is a review paper and you are discussing a particular methodology, include the advantages and shortcomings.

5. Conclusions and future work

o The conclusion should be brief and should clearly indicate what was achieved and what needs to be looked at in further detail (future work).

6. References

o The references should be appropriately numbered and should follow the IEEE format.

o References could include book chapters, conference/ journal papers, technical reports and any pertinent website links.

7. Appendix

o This could include any code/detailed design that you might have created for the project.

o This should not be included as part of the regular length of the report.

Exemplar

An exemplar term paper that merits a grade of A+ is provided in the accompanying document:

Pratibha Sharma Term Paper Exemplar.pdf

Acknowledgement

The first part of this document consists of near verbatim excerpts from http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/termpapr.htm with some material from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_paper. The text has been edited for length and cultural bias. I am grateful to Prabhita Sharma for the sections on plagiarism and formatting.