Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with a single chip source

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16265-x
• Publication Date: 2020-05-22T10:03:39Z
• Authors: Bill Corcoran; Mengxi Tan; Xingyuan Xu; Andreas Boes; Jiayang Wu; Thach G. Nguyen; Sai T. Chu; Brent E. Little; Roberto Morandotti; Arnan Mitchell; David J. Moss
• Keywords: Modulation (music)

Micro-combs [1 - 4], optical frequency combs generated by integrated micro-cavity resonators, offer the full potential of their bulk counterparts [5,6], but in an footprint. The discovery temporal soliton states (DKS dissipative Kerr solitons) [4,7-11] as a means modelocking microcombs has enabled breakthroughs many fields including spectroscopy [12,13], microwave photonics [14], synthesis [15], ranging [16,17], quantum sources [18,19], metrology [20,21] and more. One most promising applications been fibre communications where they have massively parallel ultrahigh capacity multiplexed data transmission [22,23]. Here, using new powerful class microcomb called crystals [11], we achieve unprecedented over standard single chip source. We demonstrate line rate 44.2 Terabits per second telecommunications C band at 1550nm with spectral efficiency, critically important performance metric, 10.4 bits/s/Hz. Soliton exhibit robust stable generation operation well high intrinsic efficiency that, together low spacing 48.9 GHz enable use very coherent modulation format 64 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulated). error free 75 km laboratory field trial installed metropolitan network. These experiments were greatly aided ability to operate without stabilization or feedback control. This work demonstrates capability crystal perform demanding practical networks.