Groundbreaking amplifier could lead to ‘super lasers’ that make the internet 10 times faster
https://www.livescience.com/technology/engineering/groundbreaking-amplifier-could-lead-to-super-lasers-that-make-the-internet-10-times-faster
Groundbreaking amplifier could lead to ‘super lasers’ that make the internet 10 times faster
https://www.livescience.com/technology/engineering/groundbreaking-amplifier-could-lead-to-super-lasers-that-make-the-internet-10-times-faster
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> Scientists have developed a new type of laser amplifier that can transmit information 10 times faster than current technology.
> Current optical-based telecommunication systems transmit information by sending pulses of laser light through fiber-optic cables, which are thin strands of glass. The capacity — the amount of information that can be transmitted — is determined by the amplifier’s bandwidth (the wavelengths of light that it can amplify). As data traffic increases, bandwidth therefore becomes crucial.
> Scientists have now designed a new type of laser technology that can transmit information using a technology called high-efficiency optical amplification.
> “The amplifiers currently used in optical communication systems have a bandwidth of approximately **30 nanometers**,” lead author Peter Andrekson, a professor of photonics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said in a statement. “Our amplifier, however, boasts a bandwidth of **300 nanometers**, enabling it to transmit ten times more data per second than those of existing systems.”
> The new amplifier is made of **silicon nitride**, a hardened ceramic material that is resistant to high temperatures. The amplifier uses spiral-shaped waveguides to efficiently direct the laser pulses to remove anomalies from the signal.
> The researchers chose spiral waveguides over other waveguide types because they enable longer optical paths to be created within a small area. This enhances useful effects such as four-wave mixing, which occurs when two or more optical frequencies are combined together to amplify the output with minimal noise (external interference that can disrupt the quality of the signal).
> Because the speed of light is constant, the laser light itself does not travel any faster than that from conventional lasers. However, the larger bandwidth enables the new amplifier to transmit 10 times more data than conventional lasers can.
Ten times the enshitification at ten times the speed!
Super laser sounds like something Dr. Evil would use.
Can’t even get Fiber laid out across the US after decades… honestly, this doesn’t excite me at all. Would be amazing, but it would never happen. At least in the US.
Bell can’t wait to charge $30000 per month for this
Not 10x faster but 10x more data. There’s a big difference. Faster means you won’t have as much lag. You’ll still have lag when video calling your family on the other side of the world, but now it’ll stutter in 4K
And capitalists will find a way to throttle the laser data and force you to spend more for less.
So can this technology be made into cable lines? If so, then it could be commercially viable; it could gradually phase out fiber-optic and make a lot of future videogame concepts with super high data transfer demands realistic to consider. Real life Sword Art Online, perhaps? Well, maybe in the far future, since there are still a lot of places that don’t even have fiber-optic.