Xtera has transmitted 120Tb/s over a single repeatered fibre in an experiment with University College London (UCL), using a hybrid distributed-Raman/EDFA amplifier with a bandwidth of 91nm.
The combination of a C-band and an L-band amplifier was used to get bandwidths of approximately 70nm, and Xtera’s Raman amplification provided even greater bandwidth, whilst also offering low noise. The initial experiments were performed over 630km with nine broadband amplifiers spaced at 70km. In the near future, these will be connected to form a loop to allow tests over much longer distances. The capacity and span achieved today exceeds the previous record of 115Tb/s over 100km by more than six times.
Speaking about the collaboration, Dr. Stuart Barnes, Chairman of Xtera enthused: ‘This is the start of an exciting period of work where Xtera and UCL will push the limits of this technology even further, a possibility which doesn’t exist for two discrete C+L amplifiers. I am confident that more bandwidth is not only possible but also practical, and more importantly, commercially viable.’
Professor Polina Bayvel, CBE FRS FREng, added: ‘I am happy that our state-of-the-art, high-speed WDM transmission testbed, developed through the EPSRC UNLOC programme, could be used to achieve record transmission throughput. This accomplishment has been enabled by many ground-breaking research developments in digital signal processing and amplifier technology as well as dedicated effort of outstanding researchers from UCL’s Optical Networks Group and Xtera.’
In another recent successful partnership, Xtera collaborated with ADVA to develop the capacity and reach of its optical transport products (see Xtera partners with ADVA to develop reach and capacity of optical transport products).
Further details of the experiment and findings are available at www.xtera.com/learning/ and www.arxiv.org/.
