Engineers Just Broke the Capacity Limit For Fiber Optic Transmission

Read the detailed article @ http://gizmodo.com/engineers-just-broke-the-capacity-limit-for-fiber-optic-1714070706 by Maddie Stone

• engineers reported in Science that they’d broken the “capacity limit” for fiber optic transmission, opening the door to future networks that carry more data further at lower costs.


• If you boost the power too much, the beams of laser light that carry data start interfering with one another, until eventually, the signal degrades and information is lost. - optical fiber transmission has certain physical limitations.


• we heard reports that we’re on the verge of running out of internet,…


• In experiments performed at UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute, electrical engineers were able to increase the power of optical signals nearly 20 fold, deciphering information after it had travelled a record-breaking 7,400 miles, without the use of costly electronic regenerators.


• the researchers developed wideband “frequency combs” that essentially condition streams of information before they’re sent out, such that any interference that occurs along the way is predictable. At the receiving end of the fiber, the information can unscrambled and fully restored.

Today’s fiber optic systems are a little like quicksand. With quicksand, the more you struggle, the faster you sink. With fiber optics, after a certain point, the more power you add to the signal, the more distortion you get, in effect preventing a longer reach. Our approach removes this power limit, which in turn extends how far signals can travel in optical fiber without needing a repeater.