NEC, Corning Demonstrate Fiber Transmission of Six Spatial Modes

NEC Laboratories Inc. and Corning Inc. have demonstrated a multimode optical fiber that can transmit six spatial modes over 1 km with less than 1 percent mode crosstalk even with a severely bent optical fiber.

Historically, due to the mixing of power between spatial modes, multimode optical fibers have not been able to transmit six spatial modes over kilometer-scale distances. This demonstration is the first of such a transmission.

When the fiber had five bends of 1 cm each, the modes still had less than 1 percent crosstalk. Moreover, in contrast to more complex optical fiber designs such as photonic crystal fibers, the simple design of a multimode optical fiber with an elliptical core can be fabricated with existing fabrication technologies and cost comparable to conventional single mode optical fibers. NEC’s and Corning’s results prove that these optical fibers are more than sufficient for optical fiber communication without multiple-input and multiple-output in existing data centers.