Fiber optics break the light barrier: A leap in communication history
Fiber Optics data transfer had a long distance data transfer barrier that has finally been broken by Qualcomm Institute’s electrical engineers at University of California. Breaking the barriers for a big leap in communication history.
This new study has not only silenced all the “network overload” fears for decades to come by increasing the power of optical signal to a twenty times higher level. Engineers have successfully beamed information 12,000 kilometers without any electronic regeneration support to boost the signal overcoming the interference between carriers, revealed a research paper published in Science journal.
The breakthrough here comes from wideband “frequency combs” that keeps signal distortions predictable (and thus reversible) and the end of the line — and it means the capacity of the world’s fiber optic networks could gain a very a substantial boost.
The Qualcomm Institute’s Nikola Alic, a lead author on the paper, called current fiber optic systems “a little like 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,
Electronic repeaters are an expensive way of keeping a signal going, but don’t solve the issues of signal distortion. These experimental “frequency combs” could do exactly that; effectively eliminate the need for electronic re-generators placed periodically along the fiber link. These re-generators are effectively supercomputers and must be applied to each channel in the transmission.
“Crosstalk between communication channels within a fiber optic cable obeys fixed physical laws. It’s not random. We now have a better understanding of the physics of the crosstalk. In this study, we present a method for leveraging the crosstalk to remove the power barrier for optical fiber,” explained Stojan Radic, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego and the senior author on the Science paper.
Implementation of this research would now give fiber optics the juice to maintain heavy communication on all channels including internet, television and radio. New avenues of super fast communication would lessen the gaps we face right now in data transfers and even network loads helping the world take a leap into a new era of communication.
