Researchers Demonstrate Faster Data Transmission Over New Kind of Fiber
A
team of researchers at universities in Florida and the Netherlands may
have
developed a new kind of optical fiber that can transmit data at more
than 20
times current top speeds.
An
article
published recently in the online publication Nature
Photonics describes
research done by a team of scientists from the Eindhoven
University of
Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands and the University
of Central Florida in
Orlando, FL that could lead to a solution to the impending challenge of
increasing bandwidth demand throughout the world.
Most
research
in this area has involved increasing the power of signals
delivered
over optical glass fibers enough to overcome the losses created by the
glass
the fibers are manufactured with. However, the team from the two
universities
may have demonstrated the potential of a new type of fiber that could
mitigate
the impending “capacity crunch.”
The
team,
led by Chigo Okonkwo, an assistant professor of electro-optical
communications at Eindhoven, and Rodrigo Amezcua Correa, a research
assistant
professor in micro-structured fibers at Central Florida, said in the
Nature
Photonics article that they have demonstrated the transmission of data
at 255
terabytes per second.
The
new
type of fiber the team is experimenting with has seven different cores
that
light can travel through, instead of the one core that most current
state-of-the-art fiber has. The researchers compare it to going from a
one-way
road to a seven-lane highway. At the same time, they are introducing
orthogonal
dimensions to data transmission – the equivalent of three cars driving
on top
of each other in the same lane.
Okonkwo
from
Eindhoven said, “At less than 200 microns in diameter, this fiber does
not
take noticeably more space than conventional fibers already deployed.”
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.