Terabit-Scale Orbital Angular Momentum Mode Division Multiplexing in Fibers
A Twist on the Capacity Crunch
The rate at which data can be transmitted down optic fibers is approaching a limit because of nonlinear optical effects. Multiplexing allows data to be encoded in different modes of light such as polarization, wavelength, amplitude, and phase and to be sent down the fibers in parallel. Optical angular momentum (OAM) can provide another degree of freedom whereby the photons are given a well-defined twist or helicity. Bozinovic et al. (p. 1545) were able to transmit high-bandwidth data using OAM modes in long lengths of optical fibers, thus providing a possible route to get yet more capacity through optic fiber networks.
Abstract
Internet data traffic capacity is rapidly reaching limits imposed by optical fiber nonlinear effects. Having almost exhausted available degrees of freedom to orthogonally multiplex data, the possibility is now being explored of using spatial modes of fibers to enhance data capacity. We demonstrate the viability of using the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light to create orthogonal, spatially distinct streams of data-transmitting channels that are multiplexed in a single fiber. Over 1.1 kilometers of a specially designed optical fiber that minimizes mode coupling, we achieved 400-gigabits-per-second data transmission using four angular momentum modes at a single wavelength, and 1.6 terabits per second using two OAM modes over 10 wavelengths. These demonstrations suggest that OAM could provide an additional degree of freedom for data multiplexing in future fiber networks.
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Science
Volume 340 | Issue 6140
28 June 2013
28 June 2013
Copyright
Copyright © 2013, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 15 March 2013
Accepted: 29 May 2013
Published in print: 28 June 2013
Acknowledgments
We thank S. Golowich, P. Gregg, and P. Steinvurzel for insightful discussions and M. V. Pedersen for the numerical waveguide simulation tool. This work was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency–InPho program. M.T. acknowledges support from the Chief Scientist Office of the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor within the “Tera Santa” consortium. All data related to the experiments described in this manuscript are recorded in laboratory notebooks of members in S.R.’s group, and all associated digital data are stored on networked computers at Boston University, whose contents are archived daily.
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