Microsoft Bets On Hollow Core Optical Fiber Being The Future Of High-Speed Data
The research team, which has ties to the University of Southampton and is supported by Microsoft, has successfully improved on the recent double nested antiresonant nodeless hollow core fiber (DNANF) design. Unlike conventional optical fibers that guide light through a solid core of glass, hollow core features (as the name implies) a hollow, air-filled core surrounded by very thin glass membranes.
The significance of the team's development is two-fold. First, the new fiber has achieved a record-low optical loss of just 0.091 decibels per kilometer (dB km−1). In the world of fiber optics, a lower decibel loss means the signal weakens less over distance. In other words, this breakthrough allows data to travel much farther without needing to be amplified, leading to a more efficient and greener network. To put this into perspective, first-gen hollow-core fibers were so lossy that they were practically unusable for real-world networks, and even the best solid-core fibers have a minimum loss of 0.14 dB km−1.
Second, the hollow-core design directly addresses the critical issues of speed and latency. By allowing light to travel through an air core, the technology promises transmission speeds up to 45% faster than traditional fiber. The research suggests that this innovation has the potential for 5-10 times wider bandwidth with further refinement.
While the technology is still in its early stages and a broader rollout may be several years away, Francesco Poletti, co-author of the researcher paper and co-founder of Microsoft-owned Lumenisity, told The Register that there has been a "huge internal demand for fiber" from its parent company. Thus, if all goes as planned, the technology is expected to be first deployed within Microsoft's Azure data centers to optimize their cloud infrastructure.
