PARIS — Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that two scientists from Bell Labs, its world-renowned research organization, have been awarded the prestigious 2009 Marconi Fellowship and Prize.

The two scientists, Andrew Chraplyvy and Robert Tkach, were recognized for their insights into how information is transmitted over optical networks and for finding innovative ways to significantly increase the speed and capacity of optical fiber communications systems.

The Marconi Prize is awarded annually to a living scientist whose work in the field of communications and information technology advances the social, economic and cultural improvement of all humanity.

Chraplyvy and Tkach recognized that demand for network capacity was growing exponentially and that nonlinearities inherent in optical transmission would make it virtually impossible to achieve the speeds required to meet that demand. The two scientists realized that previous approaches for increasing transmission efficiency were not sufficient and this realization motivated them to develop novel techniques that would overcome these limitations.

Robert Lucky, chairman of the Marconi Society explained "Andy and Bob developed the concept of dispersion management – and also conceived a new optical fiber type. The effect of these innovations was to enable wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) fiber transmission systems with capacities beyond one Terabit/second per fiber – a 100-fold capacity increase in a mere ten years."

"Andy and Bob's groundbreaking research paved the way towards meeting society's growing need for high bandwidth applications such as telemedicine, enhanced conferencing and other emerging applications," said Jeong Kim President of Bell Labs. "Andy and Bob exemplify the caliber of people who work at Bell labs and the pre-eminent research they perform," he added.

Chraplyvy, vice president of optical transport networks research and Tkach, director of transmission systems and networks research, both began their work at Bell Labs in the early 1980's and have since received many of the industry's highest honors such as the John Tyndall and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Awards, have been inducted into National Academy of Engineering and have been named IEEE, Bell Labs and Optical Society of America Fellows. They also hold numerous patents in the areas of lightwave systems and fiber optics.

Source: Alcatel-Lucent