For the last six years, since Bell Labs spun off its semiconductor business, its material sciences and device physics research group has been in decline.

Bell Labs currently employs about 1,000 researchers worldwide with an R&D budget of just under $2 billion. Most of the work performed at its New Jersey headquarters and the rest is scattered around the world in R&D centers in Paris, Germany, Ireland, India and China.

Bell Labs was once one of the shining stars of basic research in physics and even astronomy.Alcatel-Lucent has mandated that research be distributed among its cores businesses. Bell Labs is now organized into eight groups: physical technologies, computing technologies, optics, fixed access, wireless access, networking, service infrastructure and applications.