Technology

Electro-optic polymers could help other optical materials become more successful, according to Lightwave Logic, a development stage company.

Lightwave Logic has developed a high-performance Mach-Zehnder polymer modulator suitable for 50Gb/s modulation, the company announced at ECOC 2017 in Gothenburg Sweden. This breakthrough will enable arrays of 4 x 50G polymer modulators, which can be combined with PAM-4 encoding to build 400Gb/s data centre optics. 

The CWDM8 multi-source agreement (MSA) Group has been formed to define optical specifications for 400G singlemode optics using 50G per wavelength and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) optical modulation.

The consortium aims to address what they see as a near-term need for lower power and more cost-effective options for distances of 2km and 10km within data centre and campus networks. This will support the deployment of 12.8Tb/s Ethernet switches and other advanced networking equipment with 50G electrical I/O.

The desire for faster data centre optics appears to be outpacing the standards process. As a result, 22 companies have joined forces to speed up the development of 100Gb/s serial optical interfaces.

The 100G Lambda multi-source agreement (MSA) group is developing specifications for optical interfaces based on 100Gb/s per wavelength over duplex singlemode fibre. These new optical specifications are targeting 100 and 400 Gigabit Ethernet applications in the next-generation of networking equipment.

Johns Hopkins University reports that a team of engineers from the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has successfully demonstrated a high-bandwidth, free-space optical (FSO) communications system between two moving ships, proving that FSO technology can operate in maritime conditions. The Lab demonstrated its latest compact form factor system during the 2017 Trident Warrior Exercise, an annual event where sailors try out the latest innovations in naval warfare systems.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and six partners have established a new world record of 118.5Tb/s for the largest transmission capacity achieved over an optical fibre of standard dimensions.

Though the optical fibre had the same diameter as standard singlemode fibre, its structure was not standard. The design contained four cores (light paths) running along the fibre’s length.

Semiconductor foundry CST Global is leading a UK government-funded project that could substantially reduce the cost of manufacturing high-speed laser diodes for next-generation fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks.

The market for passive optical networks (PON) is expanding rapidly as consumers upgrade their broadband connections to higher speeds. Indeed, this summer, CST Global said it had shipped more than 25 million lasers into PON markets worldwide. To meet the insatiable demand for bandwidth, the next generation of PON lasers will need to be both higher speed and lower cost.

Rockley Photonics, a silicon photonics start-up founded by entrepreneur Andrew Rickman, has formed a partnership with the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) at the UK’s University of Southampton to develop integrated photonics technology for mass market applications.

Through the ‘Prosperity Partnership’, Rockley Photonics will match the ORC’s government funding over the next five years. The scheme is designed to strengthen ties between university and industry, and speed up the time it takes innovation to progress from concept to market place.

To much fanfare, Nokia has unveiled what it claims is the industry’s first true petabit-class routing platform, powered by a new network processor chip that is six times faster than its predecessor.

Broadcast in 360-degree video around the world, the launch event in San Francisco marked Nokia’s biggest product introduction in recent years.

Infinera has unveiled the XTM II, a next-generation packet-optical platform for metro networks, with increased density, low latency and reduced power consumption.

Calix announced that it is the first vendor to demonstrate ITU standards-based channel bonding for NG-PON2, which combines multiple 10Gb/s channels to create a single channel with throughput of up to 40Gb/s.

Channel bonding allows operators to deliver more bandwidth than a single channel can support. This technique is used to boost capacity in DSL and G.fast systems by combining the capacity from several copper cables into a single logical channel. In the case of NG-PON2, the channels are wavelengths running over the same physical fibre.