Two NTU graduate students have won Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Awards for their scientific breakthroughs that help improve security.

Lin Jiao thought there was a lack of a highly secure communication system in our military forces. The need to transmit information during constant troop deployment, without the risk of it leaking out, was paramount, he felt, but there was no infrastructural platform to ensure this.

So he decided to shed light on the situation, literally.

By making use of some properties of light rays, the second-year PhD student from the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering came up with his innovative solution – "Secure optical wireless data transfer using states of orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light".

His invention makes use of OAM-states as carriers of information. Because such optical wireless data transfer techniques are free from electromagnetic jamming and are more covert, they allow for highly secure transmission of information without the risk of others eavesdropping.

For his work, Lin Jiao received a Merit Award in the Defence Science Section of the 2006 Tan Kah Kee (TKK) Young Inventors' Award.

In a similar thread with regards to improving defence strategies, part-time master's student Tan Ming Adin worked with his supervisor, Assoc Prof Franz Konstantin Fuss, to develop a fully detonation-preventing anti-landmine shoe.

Adin, who was then Assoc Prof Fuss' project officer at the Biomedical Engineering Research Centre in NTU, developed the circuitry for a six-legged anti-mine shoe that allows its legs to retract once a mine is detected. This circuit wizardry has the great potential to save lives, since the retraction of the legs will help to avoid triggering mines. A patent for the invention has been filed with the US Patent Office.

Adin was awarded a commendation award at the same competition for his efforts in developing the NTU Mine Shoe.

On how he felt when Adin, one of his former students, won the award, Assoc Prof Fuss says: "A personal award is like harvesting the crops of your own research. But if your student wins an award, then it's like harvesting the fruits of both research and teaching! In the case of the NTU Mine Shoe, Adin solved the circuitry alone and developed the prototype. He truly deserves the TKK Young Inventors' Award."

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