In a move that could redefine the foundations of global digital infrastructure, researchers from the University of Southampton and Microsoft have announced the development of a new type of hollow-core optical fiber (HCF), which holds revolutionary potential to accelerate the internet, reduce infrastructure costs, and enhance the efficiency of global networks.
The digital revolution we are living today is entirely based on fiber-optic technology; however, the essence of this technology has not changed significantly for decades. over the past four decades, this technology has been facing challenges related to distance limits and signal loss, but today, this revolutionary design provides a radical solution to these challenges, paving the way for a faster and more powerful internet and communication systems capable of Keeping Up With the requirements of the future, including quantum computing.
Unique fiber optic design that transcends boundaries
Optical fibers made of silica – fibers that transmit light through a glass core – have reached their limits in terms of performance, as the scope for improving their signal energy loss has become very limited.
This is where the idea of hollow core optical fibers (HCF) emerged as a promising alternative.In theory, these fibers are characterized by being hollow inside, allowing light to travel through the air, which allows transmission speeds much higher than those provided by silica fibers. However, for decades, realizing this theory in reality remained a major challenge; most designs had a worse signal loss rate than conventional fibers or were impractical.
But it seems that this reality has finally changed. In a pioneering step, researchers from the University of Southampton and Microsoft revealed a major achievement in this field, and published their results in the scientific journal (Nature Photonics), they were able to design new hollow fibers that achieved an unprecedented record in the reduction of signal loss, reaching 0.091 DB/km, surpassing the minimum possible loss in silica fibers, which amounted to 0.14 DB/km
Not only has this been achieved, but the new design has also maintained low-loss levels of about 0.2 DB / km over a huge 66-terahertz bandwidth, ensuring high efficiency across a wide range of applications.
Moreover, this new design provides 45% faster transmission speeds compared to current fibers, heralding a real revolution in data transfer speed and efficiency globally.
Instead of relying on a solid glass wire, the thickness of which does not exceed the thickness of a hair in a conventional fiber, this innovation is based on a unique system of hollow glass rods.
This complex system consists of five small cylinders, each of which has two overlapping cylinders, all connected to the inner edge of one main cylinder, and the diameter of each tube has been adjusted very precisely, so that the vacuum allows only light of the specified wavelengths to pass through.
Thanks to this innovative engineering design, when a light pulse of a suitable wavelength is sent through the hollow central gap, it remains trapped inside, preventing its leakage and loss of energy.
This achievement prompted Francesco Poletti, co-author of the study, a researcher in the field of photons and materials science at the University of Southampton, UK, to confirm that this innovation could make a quantum leap in the world of communications.
Ruud Van Meter, a quantum network engineer at Keio University in Tokyo, also commented on this achievement: “if the new fibers can be easily manufactured and installed, and their durability is proven, the result could be a faster and better conventional internet”. This makes it clear that the potential impact of this innovation goes beyond the borders of laboratories, to include radically improving global internet networks.
New features and unprecedented performance:
This new design offers a range of advantages that make it strongly superior to existing fibers, including:
1. Reduce signal loss:
Conventional fibers lose half of the optical signal strength every 15-20 kilometers, which necessitates the construction of expensive booster and retransmission stations at close distances, while new hollow optical fibers more than double this rate, losing half of the signal only every 33 kilometers.
Francesco Polita has confirmed that this will represent a very significant cost saving, as it will allow operators to significantly reduce the number of booster stations.
2. Super Speed and huge capacity:
Light travels 45% faster in air than in solid glass, and this physical feature gives hollow fibers a great advantage in data transfer speed, which an engineer (Ruud Van Meter) described as a radical change that people will pay a lot of money for, especially in time-sensitive applications such as data centers and financial markets.
In addition, these fibers can transmit more than 1000 times more energy than conventional fibers, which opens the door to new high-strength applications.
3. Support future quantitative technologies:
Unlike common fibers whose efficiency is limited to the infrared range, the new hollow optical fibers support a wide spectrum of wavelengths, including single-photon pulses of visible spectrum light, which are fundamental in quantum communication systems.
Tracy Northup, an experimental physicist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, emphasizes the importance of this discovery for the quantum communication community, saying: “This result is very interesting for the quantum communication community because it allows the possibility of building more efficient and stable quantum networks.
From the laboratory to the global market:
To turn this scientific achievement into reality, Luminosity will take over the production of these revolutionary fibers, an offshoot of the University of Southampton and acquired by Microsoft in 2022, confirming the confidence of technology giants in the potential of this promising technology.
The process of producing hollow optical fibers differs radically from traditional methods. While the traditional optical fiber industry relies on melting a block of glass and then stretching it to form a thread of the required thickness, the hollow optical fibers developed by Luminosity require a more complex and precise method.
The luminosity team will start with a much larger prototype than the final design, up to about 20 cm in diameter, and during the pulling and tightening process, the internal cavities will be compressed with extreme precision, keeping the complex geometric configuration of the fibers unchanged.
The result will be a very delicate structure, the width of which is only about 100 micrometers, capable of achieving unprecedented performance in data transmission. It is this combination of engineering innovation and manufacturing precision that will allow these fibers to move from a mere research idea to a key component in the communication networks of the future.
The development of hollow fiber optics represents more than a step-by-step improvement; it is a paradigm shift that could revolutionize the global telecommunications sector. With the ability to transmit huge amounts of data at very high speeds over longer distances with less signal loss, this technology promises a faster and more efficient internet, and a digital infrastructure capable of supporting the next generation of technologies, from advanced artificial intelligence to secure quantum communication networks. As Luminosity begins commercial production, the world may be on the cusp of a new era of hyper-connectivity.