Engineers Smash Record for Fiber Optic Data Transmission With New Kind of Laser

Think your fiber’s is fast? Think again: A team of engineers has smashed the world record for sending data down an optical fiber at room temperature using a new breed of laser, achieving speeds of up to 57 Gbps.

Researchers from University of Illinois have been using a new breed of laser—the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser, to its friends—to push the speed of data transmission. That’s because they create a sharper, more efficient pulse of light, and it’s thought they could create the fastest optical data systems in time.

In 2014, the team hit 40Gbps sending data down an optical fiber with the device. Now, they’ve shown that they can send error-free data down an optical optical fiber at speeds of 57 Gbps.;