The OPTICA Advanced Photonics Congress, held this year in Busan, South Korea, from 9.7.-13.7.23, comprises five topical meetings that focus on innovations in optical materials, optical signal processing, optical communications, and integrated optics.

At the Signal Processing in Photonic Communications (SPPCom) subconference, Mr. Olaf Schulz, a Ph.D. student at the Chair of Communications, qualified as one of three finalists for the prestigious Best Paper Awards with his paper "Full Spectrum WDM Nonlinear Frequency Division Multiplexed Transmission System using Spectral Overlap" and was awarded the Best Student Paper Award. In his research, Mr. Schulz investigated the transmission of optical signals using the so-called nonlinear Fourier transform. Novel photonic integrated circuits (PIC) are used on the transmit and receive side. The results originate from a research cooperation between RWTH Aachen University (Prof. Jeremy Witzens) and the Chair of Communications (Prof. Stephan Pachnicke) at CAU Kiel, which is funded by the DFG Priority Program SPP2111 (Integrated Electronic-Photonic Systems for Ultrawideband Signal Processing). Such integrated photonic systems should make it possible in the future to break the nonlinear Shannon limit and realize optical transmission systems with very high bandwidth and energy efficiency.