Twisting Light for More Data Streams and High Bit-Rate

Category: Science & Technology
Posted: June 26, 2012 10:58AM
Author: Guest_Jim_*

Back in March, researchers in Europe used twisted radio waves to send two transmissions at the same frequency, without interference. According to their work you could have as many as 55 channels or data streams at the same radio frequency, which would be a major boon as spectrum is being taken up by more and more devices and technologies. Now researchers at the University of Southern California have taken this work a step further and created a system capable of sending 2.56 terabits per second.

Before you start thinking about how many OCC reviews you can download in one second with such a connection, it may be awhile before we see this put to that kind of use. The current technology is designed for free space transmissions and will need to be adapted for optical cabling. Satellite communications and some short-range terrestrial communications will be able to use this current implementation though.

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