14 DAY TRIAL // A team of three researchers at the University of Illinois have managed to transmit data across fiber-optics lines at room temperature and with no errors at a speed of 57Gbps.
The team, formed of graduate students Curtis Wang and Michael Liu, with Professor Milton Feng, have broken the previous record of 40Gbps, set by the same Professor Feng with another team of students in 2014.
The researchers presented their breakthrough oxide-VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) technology at last week's Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition in Anaheim, California.
VR and 4K streams can now be transmitted without clogging the network
The team has explained that, with this breakthrough, the transmission of high-quality data such as 4K and VR (Virtual Reality) streams now becomes an economically viable solution for ISPs.
Even better, the researchers have also said that their new fiber-optics transmission technology fares much better than older tech at high temperatures, and it considerably slows down transmission speeds.
This is important because data centers, the places where fiber-optics play a crucial role, have a tendency to get hot in a hurry, hence the reason to have 24/7 cooling.
New tech also fares well at high temperatures, reaching 50Gbps speeds
With the ability to transmit data at over 50Gbps at 85 degrees Celsius (185 degrees Fahrenheit), the team's new technology addresses a problem that has made it difficult for ISPs to keep up with the rate at which Internet services are gobbling up bandwidth.
"For data centers and for commercial use, you’d like a device not to carry a refrigerator," Professor Feng has explained. "The device needs to be operational from room temperature all the way up to 85 degrees without spending energy and resources on cooling."
Besides data centers, Professor Feng also sees his technology deployed in the aerospace industry, where replacing heavy copper cables with faster and lighter fiber-optics will appeal to all manufacturers wanting to cut down on an aircraft's total weight.