Researchers from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), in collaboration with the Eindhoven University of Technology and University of L’Aquila has demonstrated a record-breaking data-rate of 22.9 petabits per second using only a single optical fibre, which was more than double the previous world record of 10.66 petabits per second.
image: conceptual image of the ultralarge-capacity optical fiber transmission in this study
To put that number into perspective, a
petabit is one million gigabits, fast enough to transmit the entire internet’s second-by-second traffic 22 times over with bandwidth
left over.
Using a multi-band-compatible MIMO receiver, researchers successfully combined multi-band WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexed) and multi-core, multi-mode SDM (Space
Division Multiplexing) for the first time.
The achieved data-rate includes an overhead for an implemented forward-error correction code with
the demonstration showing up to 24.7 Pb/s can be achieved with better optimised coding. This is more than 1,000 times
the data-rate of currently deployed optical fibre communication systems.
While uncoupled four-core MCF is suitable for early adaptation, further
improvement of the telecommunication infrastructure using ultra-large-capacity optical fibres will be needed in the future, where the data traffic demand
is expected to increase by 3 orders of magnitude (x1,000 times).
This study demonstrates the first successful combination of
multi-band WDM and SDM employing a multicore multimode fiber, which is key to the realisation of future ultra-large-capacity optical fibre communication networks.