ICC (Compiled by Anton) A team of Australian, Japanese, Dutch and Italian researchers has set a new speed record for an industry-standard optical fiber, reaching 1.7 betabits (Petabits) over 67 kilometers of fiber. The fiber contains 19 cores, each of which can carry a signal, and conforms to global fiber size standards, ensuring that it can be adopted without extensive infrastructure modifications while using less digital processing and significantly reducing the power required to transmit each bit.

  Researchers at Macquarie University in Australia, have developed a glass chip that is the key to creating a 19-core fiber. We've created a compact glass chip with a waveguide pattern etched into it by 3D laser printing,' said Dr. Simon Gross of Macquarie University's School of Engineering. It allows signals to be fed simultaneously into 19 individual cores of the fiber with uniformly low loss. Other methods are limited in the number of cores and result in excessive light loss, which reduces the efficiency of the transmission system. It is exciting to work with a leader in fiber optic technology in Japan. I hope we will see this technology applied to submarine cables within five to 10 years.'

  Another researcher involved in the team, Professor Michael Withford from Macquarie University's School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, sees far-reaching implications for this breakthrough in fiber optic technology. said Professor Withford, 'The optical chip builds on decades of optical research at Macquarie University. The underlying patented technology has many applications, including finding planets orbiting distant stars, disease detection, and even identifying damage to sewage pipes.'

  The work was developed in collaboration between Macquarie University in Sydney, Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, the University of L'Aquila in Italy and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, Japan) and Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd (SEI, Japan).