In order to lead and support the rapid development of optical communication technology, as part of the national science and technology development strategy, the State Planning Commission approved the establishment of the laboratory in June, 1989.

The lab was established by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Peking University. The current chair of the academic committee of the lab is Ruxin Li, who is the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhangyuan Chen is the director of the lab.

There are many outcomes after the establishment of the lab. We completed the first WDM optical fiber communication system in our nation, -- Guangzhou - Shenzhen 4 × 2.5Gb/s bi-directional passive WDM fiber communication systems, and got the third award of National Science and Technology Progress. What’s more, hawse have completed the multicast and burst mode scheduling supported automatically switched optical network, carried out related experiments and demonstrations in the Chang Jiang delta region and won the second award of National Science and Technology Progress. Four important research directions, namely optical transmission, optical network, optical sensing and signal processing, and optoelectronic devices, have been derived and developed based on the above two outcomes. Our lab has obtained a serious of achievements and becomes an important research team in the international optical communication.

During the eleventh "Five-Year" period, our laboratory made great contributions to the development funds and major development projects in our nation, including 973 projects, 863 projects, Natural Science Foundation, National Science and Technology Support Program, Major National Science and Technology Projects, etc.

The contributions as listed as below:

1. Strategic research field

During drafting the plan of the broadband network technology development project during the national twelfth “Five-Year” period, as the team leader, our lab has hosted and participated in the formulation of national high-speed optical communications strategy research and made great contributions to the development of the optical communication and broadband technology.

2. Major basic research field

Our lab has presided two of 973 Projects and 15 sub-projects about high capacity optical networks and high-speed low-power photonic integration separately. The lab has participated Major Natural Science Foundation Projects, 4 Natural Science Fund Projects, lead and organize the fundamental research of two important frontal research directions of the optical communication.

3. High-tech research and development field

The laboratory leads the research and development of the national 863 major projects planned "High Performance Broadband Information Network", "High Trusted Network" and the "National Test Bed"component of the "Triple Play Technology and System Evolution”, and supported the construction of the "Next Generation Radio and Television". Our lab made significant contributions to the technology development in the optical communication and networks.

4. Industrialization of achievements field

The coaxial cable high-speed access technologies based on hybrid fiber-coax access technology centered with our lab has been one of the important criterions of the radio and television industry. The research results have been successfully tape-out of SoC and tested in batch. These results have significant industrialization prospects.

During the recent 5 years, 4 international and domestic conferences were held by the lab. Some of the members in our lab have been the committee members, chapter president, conference chair or chairman of the organizing committee in international conferences, such as Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC), European Conference of Optical Communication (ECOC) and INFOCOM etc. The lab has had 2 professors elected as Fellows of the Optica (formerly the Optical Society, OSA), and 45 people have served as conference chairs, technical committee chairs, and members of international conferences. There are 257 invited papers in the domestic and international conferences.

Our lab works on the forefront of the international academic development. During the last five years, we have published 979 SCI papers with a total impact factor (IF) of2415.8, average impact factor (AIF) is higher than 2.00 and a total of 2799 citations. There are 531 SCI papers with IF2.0, 338 SCI papers with IF3.0, and 23 SCI papers with IF7.0. There are also 4 ESI Highly Cited papers.

The lab has also made some breakthroughs in international standardization, participated in international Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Standard Organization, set the metrics developed international standards (RFC6777) and led the research of the international standardization progress of the optical network.

The Laboratory relies on three first-level disciplines including Communication and Information Engineering, Electronic Science & Technology, and Physics, combined with subjects such as Computer Science, Medical, etc. The reasonable knowledge structure contributes to the construction of the major projects and interdisciplinary research.

With strong support of Peking University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, our laboratory will always focus on the national strategic objectives, based on innovative basic research, and realize the achievements transformation of scientific and technology as soon as possible. The lab strives to achieve major breakthroughs in optical communication and photonics by strengthening the integration of experimental and theoretical research; to attract and cultivate outstanding talents to maintain the vitality of the research team.