A team of researchers from Denmark’s Technical University and Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology achieved 1.84 Pbit/s per second over a 7.9-kilometer distance. That equates to moving “twice the world’s total Internet traffic” in a single second.
The data was transmitted purely by light from an optical source, which produces a rainbow color range at hundreds of frequencies using a single infrared laser. The system uses standard optical fibers to transfer data across commercial equipment, which could significantly impact how Internet traffic is handled in the future.
According to the researchers, the new optical technology might cut the time it takes to download games and data-intensive programs from hours to a fraction of a second.
A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature photonics described the chip in detail, demonstrating that 1.84 Pbit/s was delivered over a 7.9 km fiber. This corresponds to a 1.84 million gigabits per second connection, the fastest fiber internet speed available.
“Fiber optic communications is the backbone of the Internet,” the paper states. “Our results could mark a shift in the design of future communication systems aimed at device-efficient transmitters and receivers.”
According to the researchers, the technology used to accomplish such data transfer speeds may be scaled up to break even more records.
“Our calculations show that we can transmit up to 100 pbit/s with the single Chalmers University of Technology chip and a single laser,” said Professor Leif Katsuo Oxenløwe of the DTU.
“The reason for this is that our solution is scalable – both in terms of generating many frequencies and splitting the frequency comb into many spatial copies and then optically amplifying them and using them as parallel sources with which we data.” can transfer. ”
However, the new speed record seems slow compared to what the researchers believe this new single-chip method’s theoretical potential.
Data transmission speeds of up to 100 Pbit/s are achievable, which equates to 12,500 TB (or 12,500,000 GB) of data sent each second.