Scientists develop new laser communication technology: per second transmission 40G

The United States University of Illinois engineering team. From left to right: postdoctoral researcher Tan Fei, graduate student Wu Mengkai and Michel Liu, front is the development of this technology person in charge, Professor Milton von. The new technology of Professor Feng led the team to the transmission speed of 40G per second, which is the highest in the United States of America

Sina science and technology news Beijing standard time on November 8th message, according to physicists organization website reported, the high speed communication technology and a big step forward -- recently a team in the United States University of Illinois in laser communication technology has made important progress, through the optical system for high-speed and accurate transmission of data per second, 40G, this is the highest speed at the United States of America's record in this field.

Members of the group of the results obtained by Milton von (Milton Feng) led by Professor, he is the school's "Nick Huo Rodney Senanayake" electronic and Computer Engineering Professor, other members and postdoctoral fellow of the Tan Fei (Fei Tan), and graduate student Wu Mengkai (Note: Mong-Kai Wu) and Michel Lou (Michael Liu). Research group in the United States Institute of electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) "photonics technology communications" magazine about the results of their research.

Along with the computer technology toward the petascale and even higher level forward, processor speed has gone beyond the speed of transmission, which is in the field of application produced a technical bottleneck, hinder the further development of application. Any attempted Dial Watch streaming video people online have experience, fast processor can not increase the loading speed file. But in the big data and cloud computing today, on the server between a large number of information interaction.

A laser device: vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSELs), can be used for high speed data transmission in fiber optic networks. Compared with a conventional cable system to speed faster transmission of the larger amount of data. Professor Feng said: "VCSEL is the current industry standard. Today optical interface all in using this technique. The whole world competition in this area is mainly to improve its speed and efficiency. And we the achieved maximum transmission speed within the territory of the United States of america."

Then the transmission speed? As a comparison, the family network can reach a speed of about 100M per second, but Professor team reached the speed of 40G of a second, which is the former 400 times faster. Because of its small size, the VCSEL device also has a very high energy efficiency -- its compared to conventional wires to energy 100 times. But at the same time the accuracy of the data transmission is very high, not in the running for 1 hours in any errors detected.

High speed data transmission accurate is to create personalized medicine, cloud computing and many other applications where. For example, in order to use the ability of high-speed computing supercomputer to medical service customization, then the first thing you need to collect medical data from patients. But the data itself is of no use, it first needs to be analyzed. So the data must be transmitted to the computer from the laboratory facilities, followed by computer for data analysis and then forwarded to the patient's doctor there, so as to help develop treatment plans.

Professor said: "if you can not transfer information, then it would be useless. If you cannot transmit data, so you have all the junk, so the data transmission technology is very important. High speed data transmission will help remote computing, the development of telemedicine and distance education better. It all depends on you can transmit data to multiple speed."

The University of Illinois research team used VCSELs equipment at room temperature, so the next step will be to try to make this equipment can adapt to the future high temperature environment in data center under normal operation.

Professor Feng finally believe, researchers will be able to use a VCSEL device data transmission speed of up to 60G per second based on, but after that, due to the limitations of the material itself, improve the space will be very limited. But he is not worried about after close to the VCSEL limit, as early as 2004, Professor Feng had with Professor Huo Rodney. With the development of a new method does not require VCSEL equipment: transistor laser. Chen Feng.