Professor Hiroyuki Tsuda, Associate Professor Ryogo Kubo, and other members of their research group at Keio University’s Faculty of Science and Technology, together with Pioneer Micro Technology Corporation, Koshin Kogaku Co., Ltd., and Optoquest Co., Ltd., successfully performed a verification test of a wavelength routing system capable of exploiting the massive wavelength resource of about 80 THz of the T- and O-bands.
The T-band used in optical communication has wavelengths of between 1,000 and 1,260 nm. Compared with the C-band (1,530–1,565 nm) and L-band (1,565–1,625 nm) that are normally used in optical fiber transmissions, the T-band has greater transmission loss, making it impractical to send communications over long distances. There has been a rapid increase in demand for high-capacity and large-scale wavelength routing systems accompanying the increase in communications traffic of recent years, especially where the application range for optical communication is several kilometers at most, such as for networks within data centers and local area networks (LAN). In this research, a quantum dot gain chip, wavelength tunable laser, semiconductor optical amplifier, and arrayed waveguide grating that can operate in the T-band and the adjacent O-band (1,260–1,360 nm) were developed, and using these, the potential to construct a large-scale wavelength routing system that can accommodate over 1,000 wavelength channels was demonstrated.
The outcomes of this research were presented at the Optical Networking and Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC 2018), an international conference held in San Diego, USA on March 15, 2018 (local time).
For further information, please refer to the following PDF file.
Development in the Newly Defined “T-Band” Communication Wavelength Band using Quantum Dot Technology ― Enabling wavelength routing system with over 1,000 wavelength channels ―