Hokkaido University, in collaboration with NTT and Fujikura Co., Ltd., has developed the world's highest density optical fiber with 1 information paths (channels) multiplexed. 114 light paths (cores) that can propagate 6 types of light (modes) at the same time are arranged.By reducing the diameter of the glass part of the optical fiber to 19 micrometers (micro is one millionth) or less, the density has been improved more than twice as much as before.It will lead to the realization of large-capacity transmission of 250 petabits per second (peta is 100 trillion times), which can transfer information of thousands of high-definition movies in 1 second.
In general, increasing the diameter of an optical fiber to increase the density increases the brittleness of the glass and makes the optical fiber itself liable to break.Hokkaido University and others have increased the density while maintaining reliability such as the resistance to breaking and bending of optical fibers, and ensured practical performance that can be used for more than 20 years.We made an optical fiber with a length of 8.85 kilometers and confirmed that high-quality transmission with little loss was possible. Aim for practical use in the 2020s.
Aiming at more information transmission, multi-core optical fibers in which multiple cores are arranged in one optical fiber and multi-mode optical fibers in which multiple modes can be guided in one core have been developed so far.This time, we have developed a practical optical fiber that can multiplex more than 1 channels with one by combining multi-core and multi-mode.
