Photonics Research Laboratory (PRL)

The Photonics Research Laboratory was founded by Professor Rod Tucker at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne in 1990 and it became a partner to the Australian Photonics Cooperative Research Centre in 1992 during its first phase and then in 1999 as part of the second phase.

Over the past eighteen years of research, the Photonics Research Laboratory has established a track record in optical communications oriented research into subsystems, systems and networks. The emergence of optical networking for applications in core, metro and access telecommunication networks has resulted in new challenges to our researchers, requiring them to seek new technology solutions to design, manage and control the next generation network infrastructures. The Photonic Research Laboratory's key strength lies in its facilities to support experimental research. It is expanding to incorporate electronic and photonics system development capabilities to effectively address the requirements of our research programs.

In 2005, the Photonics Research Laboratory formally became part of CUBIN. This change reflected the growing need to combine optical research with data communication research and even wireless research because of their mutual impacts in modern broadband communication systems. 

CUBIN's research vision is to expand its expertise to support and promote cutting-edge research into intelligent photonics systems for applications in telecommunications, biotechnology and medicine, instrumentation and national security.

Through its linkages with leading national and international research institutions in the area of photonics and telecommunications, CUBIN continues to develop collaborative research projects with other partner institutions.

The most recent of these is with the Terabit Networking Laboratory (newly established as part of the Victoria Laboratory of National ICT Australia - NICTA).  CUBIN will engage with NICTA in an ambitious research program into network technologies for next generation optical and wireless networks.

To see some of our existing research projects, check out the CUBIN Annual Report