Researchers in Sweden and Denmark have achieved a data transmission record by transmitting 1.8 petabits per second (which is 1,000 terabits, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bits) through only a single laser and an optical chip.
The researchers say that this data transfer record corresponds to twice the internet traffic of the world (although not all data on the world wide web, as that’s closer to 64 zetabytes).
This technology could reduce the internet’s impact on the environment, as this data transfer speed record has been achieved using only a single optical laser and chip.
“What is special about this chip is that it produces a frequency comb with ideal characteristics for fibre-optical communications – it has high optical power and covers a broad bandwidth within the spectral region that is interesting for advanced optical communications,” said Victor Torres Company, a professor at Chalmers University of Technology.
“With efforts in my team, we are now capable to reverse engineer the process and achieve with high reproducibility microcombs for target applications in telecommunications.”
In short, this tech works by creating a rainbow spectrum of colours, which translates to frequencies. These frequencies can be multiplied hundreds of times, creating a ‘frequency comb’. These frequencies can be reassembled into data and sent over optical fibre.
Travelling over the frequency comb created by the laser and the optical chip, this method can transfer data packages up to 1.8 petabits per second, which would otherwise require more than 1,000 lasers. It’s a bit of a game-changer.
“Our calculations show that — with the single chip made by Chalmers University of Technology, and a single laser—we will be able to transmit up to 100 petabits per second” added Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe, the head of the Centre of Excellence for Silicon Photonics for Optical Communications at the Technical University of Denmark.
“The reason for this is that our solution is scalable—both in terms of creating many frequencies and in terms of splitting the frequency comb into many spatial copies and then optically amplifying them, and using them as parallel sources with which we can transmit data.”
This technology could massively improve the power consumption of the internet at data centres, which currently use lasers to function.
Although, there is still work to be done on the chip.
“The more components we can integrate in the chip, the more efficient the whole transmitter will be. I.e. laser, comb-creating chip, data modulators, and any amplifier elements. It will be an extremely efficient optical transmitter of data signals,” added Oxenløwe.
You can read about the optical chip on the Technical University of Denmark website. The study was published in Nature Photonics.