Alcatel-Lucent’s Gabriel Charlet awarded the Fabry-de-Gramont prize

Gabriel Charlet, optical researcher in the Research & Innovation organization of Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) has received the Fabry-de-Gramont Prize from the SFO (Société Française d’Optique, the French optical society) and the GIFO (Groupement des Industriels et Fabricants de l’Optique, the Association of French optics Manufacturers) for his research in optical systems.

Awarded every two years, the Fabry-de-Gramont Prize rewards high quality research work carried out by young optic researchers, aged between thirty and forty. It is attributed jointly by the GIFO and the SFO.

Gabriel Charlet was awarded this prize for his overall research work on optical systems based on Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, notably the invention of the Phase Shaped Binary Transmission (PSBT) modulation format, adopted by Alcatel-Lucent, as well as by other optical solution providers, for new generation 40 Gigabit/s systems.

He also contributed to achieve several transmission records, such as the record of six Terabit/s capacity transmission over a 6,120 km transoceanic distance and he was involved in the launch of a new activity based on coherent detection for future networks. Although his young age, 30, he has already taken part in the filing of 26 patents and he has authored over 40 technical articles.

This award also recognizes his role in the 25 Terabit/s optical transmission project. In March 2007, Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs researchers in New Jersey and Alcatel-Lucent’s Research and Innovation researchers in France successfully transmitted a world record 25.6 Terabit/s of optical data over a single fiber strand, using 160 Wavelength-Division Multiplexed (WDM) channels - enough bandwidth to transmit the data of more than 600 DVDs per second. These results far surpassed the previous transmission record of 14 Terabit/s, established in September 2006.

Gabriel Charlet graduated from the Ecole Supérieure d’Optique in Orsay in 1999. After one year at Thales, he joined Alcatel-Lucent Research & Innovation in 2001 as a research engineer and was promoted to “study manager” engineer in 2004.