Twisted Light Capable of Transmitting Data 85,000 Times More Quickly

**Morbius Sire** · June 26, 2012, 03:45 AM

Link Here!

Came across this:

A multi-national team led by USC with researchers hailing from the U.S., China, Pakistan and Israel has developed a system of transmitting data using twisted beams of light at ultra-high speeds -- up to 2.56 terabits per second.

To put that in perspective, broadband cable (which you probably used to download this) supports up to about 30 megabits per second. The twisted-light system transmits more than 85,000 times more data per second.

Their work might be used to build high-speed satellite communication links, short free-space terrestrial links, or potentially be adapted for use in the fiber optic cables that are used by some Internet service providers.

"You're able to do things with light that you can't do with electricity," said Alan Willner, electrical engineering professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the corresponding author of an article about the research that was published in Nature Photonics on June 24. "That's the beauty of light; it's a bunch of photons that can be manipulated in many different ways at very high speed."

Willner and his colleagues used beam-twisting "phase holograms" to manipulate eight beams of light so that each one twisted in a DNA-like helical shape as it propagated in free space. Each of the beams had its own individual twist and can be encoded with "1" and "0" data bits, making each an independent data stream -- much like separate channels on your radio.

Their demonstration transmitted the data over open space in a lab, attempting to simulate the sort of communications that might occur between satellites in space. Among the next steps for the research field will be to advance how it could be adapted for use in fiber optics, like those frequently used to transmit data over the Internet.

The team's work builds on research done by Leslie Allen, Anton Zeilinger, Miles Padgett and their colleagues at several European universities.

"We didn't invent the twisting of light, but we took the concept and ramped it up to a terabit-per-second," Willner said. His team included Jian Wang, Jeng-Yuan Yang, Irfan M. Fazal, Nisar Ahmed, Yan Yan, Hao Huang, Yongxiong Ren and Yang Yue from USC; Samuel Dolinar from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and Moshe Tur from Tel Aviv University.

Wang, the lead author, left USC after completing this research and is now a professor at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.

This research was funded by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the InPho (Information in a Photon) program.

This seems like great news, especially with satellites.

**Aanker** · June 26, 2012, 02:41 PM

Interesting, I can now expect Facebook to refresh faster when waiting for new events.

...

On a more serious note, how does twisted light transmit more information than the light in your average, normal optic fibre?

**Jack04** · June 26, 2012, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by Aanker

On a more serious note, how does twisted light transmit more information than the light in your average, normal optic fibre?

Basically, its another variable you can change.

**Surgeon** · June 26, 2012, 03:24 PM

With this technology internet piracy will become unstoppable

**GrnEyedDvl** · June 27, 2012, 12:03 AM

Originally Posted by Surgeon

With this technology internet piracy will become unstoppable

Actually the other way around, I posted on this in another thread.

With data transfers that fast, there would be no reason to actually have end-user installed software. It would work much like Netflix does, you pay a monthly fee for something, and when you run it the entire application streams to you in an ecrypted format and only loads into RAM.

**Bolkonsky** · June 27, 2012, 06:47 AM

Originally Posted by GrnEyedDvl

Actually the other way around, I posted on this in another thread.

With data transfers that fast, there would be no reason to actually have end-user installed software. It would work much like Netflix does, you pay a monthly fee for something, and when you run it the entire application streams to you in an ecrypted format and only loads into RAM.

I'm taking a guess here that as soon as it reached any sort of modem or router, it would bottleneck insanely.

**Veliky Kaiser Theos** · June 28, 2012, 12:28 PM

Hmmm... Australia's National Broadband Network could get real old real fast.

Originally Posted by GrnEyedDvl

With data transfers that fast, there would be no reason to actually have end-user installed software. It would work much like Netflix does, you pay a monthly fee for something, and when you run it the entire application streams to you in an ecrypted format and only loads into RAM.

Bugger that, I'm not paying monthly for any software. Wouldn't mind a system like Steam though. If that happens, hopefully people who like one-off payments will vote with their wallets.

**boofhead** · June 28, 2012, 09:09 PM

Originally Posted by J.Philp

Hmmm... Australia's National Broadband Network could get real old real fast.

That's what I was thinking. $43 billion on something that may be outdated in 5 years LMFAO.

**Nikitn** · June 28, 2012, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by GrnEyedDvl

Actually the other way around, I posted on this in another thread.

With data transfers that fast, there would be no reason to actually have end-user installed software. It would work much like Netflix does, you pay a monthly fee for something, and when you run it the entire application streams to you in an ecrypted format and only loads into RAM.

If it's loaded into the ram and plays, why shouldn't it be easily crackable?

Regardless, I suspect that games will contain outrageous amounts of data in 20 years. This may eventually pose trouble for streaming game-content over even the fastest connections. I mean, if hardware is developing at an insane pace, why wouldn't the software keep pushing the envelope? So if say RAM is developing at an extremely high rate, I think games will accommodate for this by demanding more and more RAM. Thus making streaming impossible.

**Bolkonsky** · June 28, 2012, 09:06 PM

Originally Posted by Nikitn

I mean, if hardware is developing at an insane pace, why wouldn't the software keep pushing the envelope?

Nope. Consoles. Current games are still generations and generations behind what we're actually capable of.

**Stildawn** · August 02, 2012, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by Bolkonsky

Nope. Consoles. Current games are still generations and generations behind what we're actually capable of.

Unfortunately this.

**Mangalore** · August 03, 2012, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by Nikitn

... I mean, if hardware is developing at an insane pace, why wouldn't the software keep pushing the envelope? ....

It's a question of scale. To increase hardware power you simply have to get your transistors smaller or work at higher tact rates. This is a mechanical/physical engineering problem.

To make software faster you have to devlop better mathematical algorithms to calculate the application layer.

Solving engineering problems are pretty straightforward things. Inventing new math that can solve problems in less calculation steps is not very straightforward.

You get the problem with multicore systems. How do you accelerate a system where often there will be one main routine which only can run one core that defines the speed of the whole thing? How you program a logical system for multicores when each calculation step is waiting for other calculations to finish? It's a nightmare to predict. It probably needs entirely different software models to work.

**GrnEyedDvl** · June 27, 2012, 10:06 AM

Oh if you tried it today it would. There isnt a production router that can handle that kind of data transfer being made yet. But working off the assumption that Surgeon is working on, that everyone (or a large number of people) had access like this, then what I said still stands.

**Phier** · June 27, 2012, 03:02 PM

Originally Posted by GrnEyedDvl

Oh if you tried it today it would. There isnt a production router that can handle that kind of data transfer being made yet. But working off the assumption that Surgeon is working on, that everyone (or a large number of people) had access like this, then what I said still stands.

That idea disturbs me.

**Bolkonsky** · June 27, 2012, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by Phier

That idea disturbs me.

OnLive does something in the same genre. The game is streamed to you as you play it.

It's not great, but it works fairly well considering what it is - basically a real time screen-capture of you playing games on their computers.

**.Mitch.** · June 27, 2012, 01:26 PM

Piracy will always find a way. Whether it be a complex method of hacking the executable that handles the download and telling it to load into non-volatile memory instead or simply a hacked client that allows the download regardless of a legitimate account. The desire to stop piracy is and always will be lower than the desire to pirate.

I'm still trying to get my head around 2 terabit speeds though.. wow.

**Sphere** · June 27, 2012, 02:13 PM

It this radial polarization or is it something else?

**Phier** · June 28, 2012, 08:19 AM

This idea got me thinking about SETI.

While we are busy scanning the skys for radiowaves, we ourselves are very close to moving out of the radio mode of communication. Perhaps the reason we can't find any signal is simply the time a civilization uses such technology is extremely brief. Even if they are actively "beaming" it may well be another type of transmission which will be the obvious choice only we are unaware of it at this time.