Published in the journal Nature Communications, these findings are believed to have the potential not only to accelerate Australia's telecommunications capacity over the next 25 years, but also to pave the way for the global deployment of this locally developed technology. The research team was led by Dr. Bill Corcoran (Monash), Professor Arnan Mitchell (RMIT), and Professor David Moss (Swinburne).
For this study, the researchers achieved these speeds using the existing communications infrastructure, where they could efficiently test the network. They used a new device that replaces 80 lasers with a single piece of equipment known as a "micro-comb," which is smaller and lighter than the existing telecommunications hardware. It was installed and tested under load using the existing infrastructure, which mirrors that used by the NBN.
“We’re currently getting a glimpse into how internet infrastructure will look two to three years from now, due to the unprecedented number of people using the internet for remote work, socializing, and streaming. It really shows us that we need to be able to scale the capacity of our internet connections,” says Dr. Bill Corcoran, co-lead author of the study and professor of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University. “What our research demonstrates is the capacity of the fiber we already have in place, thanks to the NBN project, to be the backbone of communications networks now and in the future. We’ve developed something that is scalable to meet future needs.”
To illustrate the impact of optical micro-combs on optimizing communication systems, researchers installed 76.6 km of "dark" optical fibers between RMIT's Melbourne City campus and Monash University's Clayton campus. The optical fibers were provided by the Australian Academic Research Network. Within these fibers, the researchers placed the micro-comb, contributed by Swinburne as part of a broader international collaboration. This micro-comb acts as a rainbow formed by hundreds of high-quality, single-chip infrared lasers. Each laser can be used as a separate communication channel. The researchers were able to send maximum data over each channel, simulating peak internet usage, across 4 THz of bandwidth.
Professor Mitchell explains that the project's future ambition is to scale current transmitters from hundreds of gigabytes per second to tens of terabytes per second without increasing size, weight, or cost. He added, “In the long term, we hope to create integrated photonic chips that enable this kind of data speed over existing fiber optic links at minimal cost. Initially, these would be attractive for ultra-high-speed communications between data centers. However, we could envision this technology becoming small and compact enough to be deployed for commercial use by the general public in cities around the world.”
Professor Moss, Director of the Centre for Optical Sciences at Swinburne, said: “In the 10 years since I invented micro-comb chips, they have become a research field of enormous importance. It is truly exciting to see their potential in ultra-high-bandwidth fiber optic telecommunications coming to fruition. This work represents a world record for bandwidth from a single optical fiber using a single chip source, and it is a major breakthrough for the part of the network that bears the brunt of the load. Micro-combs hold enormous promise for meeting the insatiable global demand for bandwidth.”
For more information, visit www.swinburn.edu.au
