Japanese researchers set record for data transmission speed

Recently, researchers in Japan have set a new record for data transmission speed of 1.02 petabit/s (Pb/s) using fiber optic cables compatible with current infrastructure.

It is known that one petabit (Pb) is equivalent to one million gigabits (Gb), which is a new record that is about 100,000 times faster than the fastest Internet speed in a household today. Even the US Space Agency (NASA) has just reached 400 Gb/s when the ESnet6 computer network comes into operation in 2023. Theoretically, the 1 Pb/s speed allows 10 million transmissions. video channels per second with 8K resolution.

The new record was set by a team at the Institute of Information and Communication Technology (NICT) in Japan through several emerging technologies. The team announced the record at the 2022 International Conference on Lasers and Electrooptics taking place at the end of May. This fiber optic cable contains 4 cores, instead of the usual one. Signal transmission bandwidth is extended to 20 THz thanks to wavelength optical multiplexing (WDM) technology.

The researchers created that band from a total of 801 wavelength channels in three bands, including the C-band, the L-band, and the experimental S-band. With the help of optical amplification and signal modulation technology, the team was able to achieve a record speed of 1.02 Pb/s, transmitting data over 51.7 km of optical fiber.

This is not the first time scientists at NICT have crossed the one-Pb/s mark in data transmission. In December 2020, they reported a record of 1.01 Pb/s, using a single-core fiber optic cable and encoding data into 15 modes. The new record is not only faster, but it also transfers one mode per core, meaning data can be read using today's technology.

Besides, the 4-core fiber optic cable has the same diameter of 0.125 mm as the standard cable, so it is compatible with the infrastructure as well as the production process.