NEC, Corning Accomplishes Milestone in Optical Transmission Capacity

By Carolyn J Dawson
TMCnet Contributor

NEC Corporation of America, along with Corning (News - Alert) Incorporated, has accomplished some groundbreaking things in transmission capacity over optical fibers.

The results of the two organizations have been unveiled at the 2012 Frontiers in Optics/Laser Science XXVIII meeting.

Extremely high-speed transmission, with a capacity of 1.05 Petabit/s or 1015 bits per second, was showcased by researchers from the NEC (News - Alert) Labs, located in Princeton, NJ; and Corning’s Sullivan Park Research Center located in Corning, NY. The transmission was conducted over a unique multi-core fiber (MCF), consisting of 12 single-mode and two few-mode cores.

The transmission was carried out using the sophisticated space division multiplexing (SDM) scheme and optical multiple-input multiple-output or MIMO signal processing technique.

In a statement, Dr. Ting Wang, head of Optical Networking Research, NEC Laboratories America said, “This achievement is a continuation of NEC’s leadership in ultra-high optical transmission systems. We recently demonstrated the highest capacity over single mode optical fibers, and now we have opened new frontiers with the highest transmission capacity over any type of optical fibers. We are proud to lead industry efforts with Corning and to provide solutions that will be the foundation of the next generation of networking.”

Researchers at Corning have developed a fiber which has cores set in a triangular network, ensuring transmission over a huge quantity of spatial modes. NEC researchers have merged spectral multiplexing with polarization and spatial mode multiplexing. They have also made use of multilevel modulation formats for accomplishing the overall spectral efficiency of 109 bits/sec/Hz.

The average transmission capacity was 1.050 Petabit/s, one of the highest capacities over a single optical fiber detailed to date.

Cynthia B. Giroux, division vice president and Research Director at Corning, said, "As the foundation of telecommunications networks, optical fiber innovation enables carriers to cost effectively keep up with ever-growing traffic demands. This new advance in optical fibers with 14 transmission cores is a continuation of Corning’s longstanding leadership in optical fiber innovation."

NEC is a major provider and integrator of sophisticated IT communications, managed services, biometric solutions and carrier-class communications products for optical networks.  

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Edited by Braden Becker