Huawei sets transmission record with new modulator
Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 5:06PM Coherent discourse: Part 1
A paper from Huawei and Sun Yat-Sen University in the January issue of the Optica journal describes a thin-film lithium niobate modulator. The modulator enabled a world-record coherent optical transmission, sending nearly 2 terabits of data over a single wavelength.
Maxim Kuschnerov
Much of the industry’s focus in recent years has been to fit coherent optical technology within a pluggable module.
Such pluggables allow 400-gigabit coherent interfaces to be added to IP routers and switches, serving the needs of the data centre operators and telecom operators.
But research labs of the leading optical transport vendors continue to advance high-end coherent systems beyond 800-gigabit-per-wavelength transmissions.
Optical transport systems from Ciena, Infinera and Huawei can send 800-gigabit wavelengths using a symbol rate of 96-100 gigabaud (GBd).
Acacia Communications, part of Cisco, detailed late last year the first 1.2-terabit single-wavelength coherent pluggable transceiver that will operate at 140GBd, twice the symbol rate of 400-gigabit modules such as 400ZR.
Now Huawei has demonstrated in the lab a thin-film lithium niobate modulator that supports a symbol rate of 220GBd and beyond.
