Polymer Optical Transmitters Go Even Faster

Whispers_in_the_dark writes "Scientific American is running an article on how a new type of polymer sandwich could be used in the future to push lightwave encoding of data up to around 200 GHz instead of the 10 GHz that is the upper bound today. The best part is that the new deviceswill be cheaper to produce than the current ones, after mass production presumably."

Application

[Ann Coulter]

The elimination of signal interference is a primary concern in quantum systems. I wonder if this polymer fiber can be used as a secure Heisenberg channel and if so at what speeds can we expect reliable operation?

It sucks how University libraries recieve Science(tm) two weeks late.

Re:Application

[BMagneton]

After checking your posting history, I'm going to ignore the the inevitable YHBT and respond, since you seem to have garnered a high rating anyway without exhibiting anything more than a buzzword knowledge of a related (but not specifically relevant) subject.

Go into your University Library, sit down at one of the nice P-II's , and point your browser to Science Online [sciencemag.org], surf to the current issue and article ("Broadband Modulation of Light by Using an Electro-Optic Polymer") and quit whining about paper copies. In fact, you can probably do this from nearly anywhere in .edu.

Also, to correct the opinion of anyone else out there, this article is not about a fiber. This polymer device is an Electro-Optical modulator, a gadget used to transfer electrical signals onto optical waveforms inside a fiber. To repeat, this is not a type of fiber. Modulators are absolutely critical components in optical communications. They have little to do specifically with secure quantum communications.

It is, however, an extremely fast modulator. You can currently buy 40-50 GHz response modulators packaged and ready to go. Historically, polymer modulators have been a bit higher power and tend to degrade (decay) more over time than the competing technology.

One interesting milestone to note is that communications systems go up in factors of four. Current implementation in the ground is 10 Gb/s. Current state of the art (that a slew of telecom startups are crashing and burning selling because no one is buying) is 40 Gb/s. This is the first modulator I've seen that might do 160 Gb/s.

BMagneton

Fixing?

[xWeston]

This is slightly offtopic, but still about the same type of thing. I was thinking about fiber optics the other day and talking about them in my E&M class (they added optics as an extra unit). We were trying to figure out how they "fix" fiber optic cables if they break? I looked around online and found out that they have to "pump up" the signal every half mile or so I think it was, so do they just go back to this junction and replace the entire thing? I had always thought the cabling was more expensive than copper but aparrently it is cheaper. All of these technologies are interesting but I still think that the future is in wireless technology. As our cities and states get more developed, nobody wants to go back through and lay a bunch of polymer cabling or fiber optics to have high speed internet. It has gotta be wireless. Easy deployment, cheap, etc :)

Re:Fixing?

[xWeston]

Sorry about that, i forgot to add any line breaks above.

:X

Re:Fixing?

[Myco]

My understanding is that the cost of the medium (fiber itself) is quite low. The expense comes in when you need to terminate it, boost the signal, etc. Not to mention the trouble of digging trenches and laying fiber, of course.

When they do lay fiber, I believe (that is, I read in a Slashdot comment which seemed plausible for once) that they lay like 2 dozen cables when they only need one, just so they don't have to go digging again. So if a cable goes bad, they'd just switch to a good one at the endpoints, I suppose.

Re:Fixing?

[runcible]

So if a cable goes bad, they'd just switch to a good one at the endpoints, I suppose.

Actually, I doubt that. Traditional fiber is pretty fragile. It is generally laid in (at the very least) a conduit that protects it from casual breaks. IMO, something that smacks into a conduit with enough force to break one fiber will -- chances are -- break all of `em.

It is possible to splice fiber and/or repair breaks, it just takes a specially trained person with very expensive equipment.

they lay like 2 dozen cables when they only need one, just so they don't have to go digging again

Going OT here -- I read recently that at least one company was laying their fiber in chambered conduits, meaning that, in addition to laying more than they need, if they need more fiber in a given conduit, they just attach a vacuum to one end and suck a new fibre bundle through. Throught that that was pretty slick.

Re:Fixing?

[Myco]

Wow, that sounds cool. How would it work, though? I'm not familiar with chambered conduits -- how do you get an air seal to create suction if you've already got stuff in the conduit? Or would you pull out the bad fiber first? Guess I just need to know what chambered conduit is, exactly.

Re:Fixing?

[Olaznog (c)]

You can't use wireless technology between N.Y. and L.A., or between London and Paris. Well, you may use a satellite link, but with many inconvenients.

The optical fiber is not intended for the last mile, where radiowaves are much butter, but for long distance communications, and to build up the backbone of the Internet.

I don't buy it

[macdaddy357]

Lucent/Bell Labs is well known for publishing science fiction as scientific findings to pump up thier stock. Is that going to change just because J. Hendrick Schon doesn't work there any more? I don't think so. Don't rush out and buy any stock in Lucent because you read this article.

Re:I don't buy it

[Myco]

The stock value can rise due to science fiction, and stay elevated for as long as the typical stockbroker is convinced that the promised breakthrough is real. Or did you think stock value had some connection to company earning potential? It's all about perception.

Re:is it just me?

[dlm3]

It's not that simple. A 1GHz databus does not translate into 1Gbps of data being transmitted. Depending upon the encoding and the overhead it could easily be substantially less than 1Gbps in real throughput.