In today’s extremely interconnected world, the transmission of information and the speed at which we can do it is beyond crucial. Recently, researchers used a single laser and a single optical chip to transmit data at 1.8 petabits per second, the equivalent of transmitting all global internet traffic, twice.
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According to Nature Photonics, this mind-boggling feat is mostly due to the optical chip used in the study. It is designed as a “frequency comb” – using a single laser light to create a rainbow of frequencies that are all equally spaced and can each carry their own stream of data to be transmitted through fiber optics.
“What is special about this chip is that it produces a frequency comb with ideal characteristics for fiber-optical communications – it has high optical power and covers a broad bandwidth within the spectral region that is interesting for advanced optical communications,” Victor Torres Company said in a statement. He is the head of the team that created the chip and a professor at Chalmers University of Technology.
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The researchers demonstrated how the chip has the potential to eventually make data transmission more than 50 times faster.
“We have an opportunity to contribute to achieving an Internet that leaves a smaller climate footprint,” said Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe, from the Denmark Technical University.
The research team continues to incorporate the single laser with other chip components with the goal of transmitting enormous amounts of information while reducing the energy needs for telecommunication technologies.
