19 crores are packed into standard fibre by researchers. Japan’s National Institute for Information and Communication Technology (NICT), along with Sumitomo Electric, the Eindhoven University of Technology, the University of L’Aquila, and Macquarie University in Australia, successfully packed a record number of cores into a standard-cladding optical fiber. They demonstrated this achievement by achieving a speed record of 1.7 petabits per second over a distance of 67 kilometers.
The team developed a 19-core optical fiber with a standard cladding diameter of 0.125 mm, which NICT claims is the highest number of cores ever packaged in a standard cladding diameter. The use of the 0.125 mm cladding ensures compatibility with current manufacturing technology.
Sumitomo Electric was responsible for designing and fabricating the core, while NICT constructed the transmission system for the demonstration. Macquarie University contributed by developing a 3D laser-printed core multiplexer-demultiplexer, which enables the interface between the 19-core fiber and single-core fibers, which in turn connect to standard transmission equipment.
Dr. Simon Gross from Macquarie’s School of Engineering explained that they created a compact glass chip with a waveguide pattern etched into it using 3D laser printing technology. This chip allows signals to be fed into the 19 individual cores of the fiber simultaneously with minimal losses. Dr. Gross also mentioned that other approaches are less efficient and have limitations in terms of the number of cores.
The researchers believe that this technology could be deployed in submarine cables within the next five to ten years. NICT stated that the fiber has the potential to reduce the digital processing power required in submarine cables compared to multi-mode fiber transmission.
The results of this experiment were presented at the 46th Optical Fiber Communication Conference in March.