Everyone deserves fast, secure internet—no matter where they live. The NRC's High-throughput and Secure Networks Challenge program is working to make that happen for rural and remote communities across Canada.
Satellite-based technologies are a key part of this effort. With support from the program, researchers from the NRC, McGill University and Concordia University are working with the Montréal-based company Axonal Networks on a photonic transceiver that will enable extremely fast data transfer for communications satellites. The technology could allow satellites to act as giant internet routers capable of delivering high-speed service to hard-to-reach areas.
"The optical transceiver translates electrical signals into optical (light) signals, and optical signals into electrical signals," explains Dr Mohamed Rahim, Senior Research Officer in the NRC's Quantum and Nanotechnologies Research Centre. "Optical data processing has the additional advantage of being much less susceptible to the effects of background radiation, which is present at much higher levels in space."
Experts collaborate to put the pieces together
Combining electrical and optical technologies into 1 compact, robust device is the central challenge of this collaborative endeavour.
"To make a transceiver, you need an optical source (a laser), you need a modulation mechanism to control the emitted light so it can be used to transmit information, and you need electronic thermal stabilisation to keep the laser and modulators operating at an optimal temperature to ensure consistent performance," Dr. Rahim says.
Each partner is tackling each key part, with the goal of assembling them in a single package scarcely larger than a box of matches.
Drawing on the NRC's semiconductor expertise, Dr. Rahim and his team have designed, built and tested lasers to meet Axonal Networks' exact specifications for power, frequency and linewidth (the degree to which the emitted light deviates from the laser's central frequency). For now, the NRC team has delivered the laser in a "butterfly" package, a format that is easy to combine with other components during the rest of the testing and development process. A future challenge will be to miniaturize and integrate it with the transceiver's other components.
Academic partners bring advanced design capabilities
At McGill University, a team led by Drs. Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur and Nate Quitoriano in the Faculty of Engineering has designed a microring modulator to perform the switching function that allows the transceiver to transmit 1s and 0s as pulses of light. The laser beam is split into 4 channels, each passing through a tiny loop that uses resonance to either trap the light ("0") or allow it to pass through ("1").
Performing a staggering number of these on-off steps every second, microring modulators have one weakness: they are highly sensitive to temperature changes. It's tough enough for transceivers operating in a climate-controlled data centre on Earth, but it's an even greater challenge under the conditions typically encountered by a satellite in orbit.
Working with the Axonal and McGill teams, Dr. Glenn Cowan and his colleagues in Concordia University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering helped create and patent a thermal tuning circuit that monitors the modulators' outputs, adjusting tiny heating elements to maintain a stable temperature. This technology also guards against laser drift, which occurs when temperature variations, vibration or other factors change the laser's output.
Making the grade in space
While the technology has proven itself in data centre applications, using it on satellites brings new challenges.
Axonal Networks Chief Executive Officer Dr. David Rolston knows what it takes to meet the space industry's exacting standards. The electrical engineer draws on decades of experience developing transceivers for major aerospace companies like Thales Alenia Space, Boeing and Airbus.
"There's an astoundingly huge amount of testing and validation that goes into these transceivers in order to sell to the space sector," he says. "I'm aiming to replicate that for the higher-speed devices that we're developing now."
In mid-2025, these efforts received a boost when a major multinational electronics engineering firm lent its support. The company's backing will advance prototype development and open commercial access to major aerospace firms.
Breakthroughs take teamwork
"The collaboration between Axonal, McGill, Concordia and the NRC demonstrates the power of teamwork in advancing cutting-edge technology," says HTSN Director Lynne Genik.
"Securing private sector investment is a major achievement that speaks not only to Axonal Networks' outstanding leadership, but also to the strength of the innovation and how far it could go," she adds. "This effort is laying the groundwork for a new generation of space-ready components that will help deliver faster, more reliable broadband to rural and remote communities—an exciting step toward a more connected Canada."
To enable this collaboration under the HTSN Challenge program, collaborators were supported by non-repayable contribution funding from the Collaborative Science, Technology and Innovation Program, administered by the NRC's National Program Office.