PoliCom (Optical Communications Politecnico Milano) supports research activities of the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria in the development and testing of innovative solutions in the field of fiber optic communications systems. 
In particular, PoliCom research is focused in exceeding the transmission limits of very-high capacity modern optical communication systems: from the long-haul transport network to the metro-regional and access networks, to datacom links and to the backplane, with particular attention to multiplexing techniques (in wavelength, polarization and mode) and to modulation techniques (complex modulation formats and multicarrier modulation) designed to increase the transmitted capacity.
In addition, PoliCom Lab studies new approaches to exploit the optical fiber also for sensing, with the development of original fiber-based sensors for industrial applications.
PoliCom Lab is equipped with state-of-art instruments and equipments (e.g. arbitrary waveform generators, high samplig rate DACs, real-time oscilloscopes, BER testers, transmission link test beds) for very high-speed system experimentation. The optical fiber system behavior is also modeled by means of dedicated software tools.

Main relevant research area:

• Very-high throughput sustainable metro systems: innovative solutions for multi-Tb transmission; exploitation of the capabilities of novel components and devices (such as long-wavelength VCSELs) to achieve energy-efficient, low-cost and reduced footprint implementation; exploitation of multicarrier modulation formats (such as DMT).
• Access networks and PONs: cost-effective and colorless solutions for PON applications based on the exploitation of RSOAs at the ONU side; multicarrier solutions (OFDM and FDM based) compliant to NG-PON2 standard; innovative architectures for WDM-PON and for LTE and 5G fronthaul applications.
• Mode-division multiplexing networks: novel multiplexing/routing layer based on optical modes; passive and all-optical modes multiplexer/demultiplexer development for LP and OAM modes; low-complexity MIMO solutions for few-mode fiber links.
• Intra and inter-datacenter links and backplane-based interconnections: fiber-based optical solutions for short and very short reach applications; datacom fiber network architectures based on new communication protocols (such as PCIe); full-mesh interconnection solutions.
• Optical fiber sensors: concentrate, distributed and integral measurement of environment paramenters, such as temperature, pressure, strain, shape, vibration, velocity, electrical current and voltage; monitoring applications for Industry 4.0.

Laboratory specialities:

Experimental characterization and test of photonic devices and subsystems in a suitable fiber network setup with controlled:
- propagation reach;
- fiber map;
- transmission rate;
- modulation format;
- detection scheme.

Design and implementation of custom fiber-based sensors for distributed and/or concentrate measures.