New Fibre Optic Technology To Boost Internet Bandwidth

A new fiber optic technology could increase Internet bandwidth capacity by sending data along light beams that twist like a tornado rather than move in a straight line.

 

 

The new technology operates using round, rather than vertical laser beams, resulting in a twisting movement that can increase the capacity of bandwidth as internet traffic increases through the use of smartphones, tablets and other internet-enabled devices, that has begun to create problems for network providers.

Traditionally, bandwidth has been enhanced by increasing the number of colours, or wavelengths of data-carrying laser signals -- essentially streams of 1s and 0s -- sent down an optical fibre, where the signals are processed according to colour.

For several decades since optical fibres were deployed, the conventional assumption has been that OAM-carrying beams are inherently unstable in fibres.

Unlike the colours, however, data streams of 1s and 0s from different modes mix together; determining which data stream came from which source requires computationally intensive and energy-hungry digital signal processing algorithms.

Researchers approach combines both strategies, packing several colours into each mode, and using multiple modes. Including the use of such beams for enhancing data capacity in fibers.

Researchers created an OAM fibre with four modes (an optical fibre typically has two), and showed that for each OAM mode, they could send data through a 1km fibre in 10 different colours, resulting in a transmission capacity of 1.6 terabits per second. or the equivalent of transmitting eight Blu-Ray DVDs every second.