The standard optical fiber technology achieved a transmission record of 1.53 petabit per second

A team of researchers from Japan’s National Network of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) research institute managed to achieve a new world record of bandwidth in a standard diameter optical fiber.

By encrypting information in 55 different optical frequencies, the researchers reached a bandwidth of about 1.53 petabits per second; A technique that is also called multiplexing. This bandwidth will be enough to transmit the entire world’s Internet traffic (which is estimated to be about one petabit per second) through a single fiber optic cable. Such a speed in data transfer is about one million times higher than the gigabit connections that we currently use.

The Japanese researchers’ technology works by using different frequencies of light across the spectrum. Since each color in the visible and invisible light spectrum has its own frequency, it can be used to carry an independent flow of information. The researchers managed to achieve a spectral efficiency of 332 bps per hertz, which is three times the efficiency of their previous best efforts in 2019; where they managed to achieve a spectral efficiency of 105 bits per second per hertz.

written by TomsHardware, the researchers transmitted information on C-band at 184 different wavelengths; Separate, non-overlapping frequencies, designed to carry information simultaneously within a fiber optic cable. Before sending the information through the fiber optic cable, the light is modulated to transmit 55 separate data streams. In the next step, a glass core is needed to transfer all the data. By transmitting information, the receiver decodes the different wavelengths and modes to collect the data. In this experiment, the distance between the transmitter and the receiver was 25.9 km.

It is worth mentioning that modulation in electronics and telecommunications is the process of changing one or more waveform characteristics called the carrier signal with a modulation signal and usually contains the information to be transmitted. A modulator is also a device that performs modulation.

Recently, another group of researchers has succeeded in achieving a bandwidth of 1.84 petabit per second with a prototype of a photonic relay. This figure is higher than what the Japanese research has achieved, but the problem is that we need a photonic chip to use it; A chip that is still in the early stages of design and testing. Therefore, the specific Japanese research is likely to be implemented sooner, and the fiber optic infrastructure to use it will have to be upgraded slowly. In addition, it seems that the transmission speed of 1.53 petabit per second is still more than 50% higher than the total Internet traffic in the world, and such an impressive bandwidth, considering the number of wavelengths that researchers have used in past experiments, will be a clear solution for further scaling of bandwidth in the future. Was.