Researchers from Monash, Swinburne and RMIT universities have
successfully tested and recorded Australia’s fastest internet data
speed, and that of the world, from a single optical chip – capable of
downloading 1000 high definition movies in a split second.
Published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications,
these findings have the potential to not only fast-track the next 25
years of Australia’s telecommunications capacity, but also the
possibility for this home-grown technology to be rolled out across the
world.
In light of the pressures being placed on the world’s
internet infrastructure, recently highlighted by isolation policies as a
result of COVID-19, the research team led by Dr Bill Corcoran (Monash),
Distinguished Professor Arnan Mitchell (RMIT) and Professor David Moss
(Swinburne) were able to achieve a data speed of 44.2 Terabits per
second (Tbps) from a single light source.
This technology has the
capacity to support the high-speed internet connections of 1.8 million
households in Melbourne, Australia, at the same time, and billions
across the world during peak periods.
Demonstrations of this
magnitude are usually confined to a laboratory. But, for this study,
researchers achieved these quick speeds using existing communications
infrastructure where they were able to efficiently load-test the
network.
They used a new device that replaces 80 lasers with one
single piece of equipment known as a micro-comb, which is smaller and
lighter than existing telecommunications hardware. It was planted into
and load-tested using existing infrastructure, which mirrors that used
by the NBN.
It is the first time any micro-comb has been used in a
field trial and possesses the highest amount of data produced from a
single optical chip.
“We’re currently getting a sneak-peak of how
the infrastructure for the internet will hold up in two to three years’
time, due to the unprecedented number of people using the internet for
remote work, socialising and streaming. It’s really showing us that we
need to be able to scale the capacity of our internet connections,” said
Dr Bill Corcoran, co-lead author of the study and Lecturer in
Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University.
“What
our research demonstrates is the ability for fibres that we already
have in the ground, 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.
“And it’s not just Netflix
we’re talking about here – it’s the broader scale of what we use our
communication networks for. This data can be used for self-driving cars
and future transportation and it can help the medicine, education,
finance and e-commerce industries, as well as enable us to read with our
grandchildren from kilometres away.”
To illustrate the impact
optical micro-combs have on optimising communication systems,
researchers installed 76.6km of ‘dark’ optical fibres between RMIT’s
Melbourne City Campus and Monash University’s Clayton Campus. The
optical fibres were provided by Australia’s Academic Research Network.
Within
these fibres, researchers placed the micro-comb – contributed by
Swinburne University, as part of a broad international collaboration –
which acts like a rainbow made up of hundreds of high quality infrared
lasers from a single chip. Each ‘laser’ has the capacity to be used as a
separate communications channel.
Researchers were able to send maximum data down each channel, simulating peak internet usage, across 4THz of bandwidth.
Distinguished
Professor Mitchell said reaching the optimum data speed of 44.2 Tbps
showed the potential of existing Australian infrastructure. The future
ambition of the project is to scale up the current transmitters from
hundreds of gigabytes per second towards tens of terabytes per second
without increasing size, weight or cost.
“Long-term, we hope to
create integrated photonic chips that could enable this sort of data
rate to be achieved across existing optical fibre links with minimal
cost,” Distinguished Professor Mitchell said.
“Initially, these
would be attractive for ultra-high speed communications between data
centres. However, we could imagine this technology becoming sufficiently
low cost and compact that it could be deployed for commercial use by
the general public in cities across the world.”
Professor Moss,
Director of the Optical Sciences Centre at Swinburne University, said:
“In the 10 years since I co-invented micro-comb chips, they have become
an enormously important field of research.
“It is truly exciting
to see their capability in ultra-high bandwidth fibre optic
telecommunications coming to fruition. This work represents a
world-record for bandwidth down a single optical fibre from a single
chip source, and represents an enormous breakthrough for part of the
network which does the heaviest lifting. Micro-combs offer enormous
promise for us to meet the world’s insatiable demand for bandwidth.”
