Their ground-breaking project, which has produced several world firsts, bags the 2005 IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award.

A joint effort with the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), the award-winning research - "Multi-wavelength Modulation Technologies for Optical Signal Processing" - enables data transmission systems to be upgraded to high-bandwidth networks.

It was led by Assoc Prof Zhang Ying (SIMTech) and Prof Soh Yeng Chai (NTU), and completed over three years by a six-man team including three PhD students.

Key to the team's success was a series of crucial breakthroughs in fibre optics component design and fabrication. These have given rise to innovative all-fibre optical devices that can be fabricated cheaply and easily integrated, without a loss of quality, into optical communication networks to greatly enhance their bandwidth capacity.

"This way, users can enjoy the benefits brought about by the high bandwidth," explains Prof Soh from the Division of Control & Instrumentation at NTU's School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE).

The Prestigious Engineering Achievement Awards are presented annually by the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES) to recognise outstanding engineering achievements that have contributed significantly to engineering progress and the quality of life in Singapore. Four Singapore teams were feted this year.

World's first technologies
The NTU-SIMTech research team is one of a few pioneers on the pulse of research related to all-fibre optical signal processing and the design and fabrication of all-fibre optical filters.

In fact, the team has broken new ground in the design and fabrication of several optical devices. In particular, it was the first in the world to develop a 3-port all-fibre optical interleaver or optical multiplexer for which a patent has been filed. The team was also the first to create an optical spectrum equaliser by using a multi-port all-fibre coupler.

Two US patents have been jointly filed by NTU and the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR), which SIMTech comes under.

Significantly, the inventions are in the process of being commercialised.

"The developed technologies are extremely useful to the optical communication sector and the optical sensor networks. We expect these sectors to response positively to our inventions," shares Prof Soh. "We are now working towards extending the technologies developed for applications in the precision measurements sector."

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