Two ideas originating in FORCE have been adopted into the Incubator of Chalmers Innovation, which means that they are being developed for possible commercialization. Patent applications have been filed and a project leader has been hired to investigate the market situation and contact potential customers. Both innovations were conceived as direct results of the interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of Signals and Systems and the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, both at Chalmers University of Technology.

The first innovation is the so-called Interleaved Polarization-Division Multiplexing, or Zipper Multiplex, which is a method to enable coherent optical communications without the need for carrier recovery. The system can be almost as spectrally efficient as standard coherent communication systems, by employing different wavelength-division multiplexing schemes in the two polarizations, which makes it an attractive choice in long-haul fiber-optical transmission. It has been developed by Martin Sjödin and Erik Agrell.

The second innovation, called Tetra or Optium, is a family of modulation methods for noncoherent optical communications. It is more suitable for short-range optical communications, where the cost is critical and a lower spectral efficiency can be afforded. Possible applications are in fiber-to-the-home, optical interconnects in computer centers, vehicular data communications, and home entertainment systems. The new modulation formats, developed by Johnny Karout, Krzysztof Szczerba, and Erik Agrell, employ subcarrier modulation in a new way to transmit data using less power than what was possible before, without reducing the data rate or transmission quality.

The projects have received considerable attention in Swedish media recently:

http://vastaffar.se/tva-projekt-vid-chalmers-baddar-for-effektivare-optiska-fibernat/

http://www.gp.se/ekonomi/1.705215-chalmers-snabbare-fibrer

http://computersweden.idg.se/2.2683/1.398479/svensk-teknik-okar-fiberkapacitet

http://www.etn.se/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54582