Tiny light hurricanes make fiber optic data transfer 16x faster

The Aalto team’s breakthrough stems from manipulating metallic nanoparticles using an electric field to form a unique pattern called a “quasicrystal.”

Srishti Gupta

The new quasicrystal design method allows for theoretically any kind of vortex.

Modern communication heavily relies on encoding information onto various carriers, with laser light transmitted through fiber optic cables as one of the most common methods. However, as the demand for data transmission grows, the need for more efficient encoding techniques has become pressing.

Researchers at Aalto University have now unveiled an innovative approach to achieve this, developing a method to create “vortices” of light—small spirals of light energy—that have the potential to significantly expand data capacity.

“This research is on the relationship between the symmetry and the rotationality of the vortex, i.e. what kinds of vortices can we generate with what kinds of symmetries. Our quasicrystal design is halfway between order and chaos,” Päivi Törmä, one of the study authors, says.

These tiny light vortices are akin to hurricanes within a laser beam, with a calm, dark center encircled by a bright ring, somewhat like the eye of a storm. In this case, the vortex forms because the light’s electric field flows in different directions around the center, creating a distinctive pattern that can carry information.

The Aalto team’s breakthrough stems from manipulating metallic nanoparticles using an electric field to form a unique pattern called a “quasicrystal.” Quasicrystals don’t fit neatly into conventional geometrical categories; they exhibit a pattern that’s regular yet never repeats, providing new possibilities for encoding information.

By controlling the symmetry within these quasicrystals, the researchers can create complex light vortices that carry different types of encoded information.

Historically, scientists have known that the geometry of a material at the nanoscale affects the type of vortices it produces. Simple shapes like squares generate basic single vortices, while hexagonal patterns produce double vortices, and even more intricate forms require octagonal arrangements.

But until now, creating more complex vortices for encoding data was challenging. The Aalto team’s design surpasses these limitations, opening up the possibility for generating vortices of any complexity, which could revolutionize data encoding and transmission.

In their experiment, the team manipulated 100,000 metallic nanoparticles, each about a hundredth of the width of a human hair. Rather than placing the particles in high-energy hotspots within the electric field, they strategically positioned them in “dead zones” of minimal interaction. By avoiding areas of high vibration, the researchers could fine-tune the electric field to produce the desired vortices with specific characteristics.

Taskinen explains this as a counterintuitive but effective approach: ‘An electrical field has hotspots of high vibration and spots where it is essentially dead. We introduced particles into the dead spots, which shut down everything else and allowed us to select the field with the most interesting properties for applications,’ Taskinen says in the press release.

This advancement could pave the way for enhanced data transmission capabilities in fields requiring light-based encoding, such as telecommunications.

According to Arjas, these vortices could be transmitted through fiber optic cables and decoded at their destination, enabling the storage and transmission of much more data within a smaller bandwidth. Early estimates suggest this technology could increase fiber optic data capacity by 8 to 16 times compared to current methods.

While practical applications of this discovery may still be years away, this technique represents a promising foundation for future advancements. Scaling this approach for widespread use will require significant engineering efforts, but the Quantum Dynamics group at Aalto is already immersed in related research areas, including superconductivity and advancements in organic LEDs.

The study has been published in Nature Communications.

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Srishti Gupta Srishti studied English literature at the University of Delhi and has since then realized it's not her cup of tea. She has been an editor in every space and content type imaginable, from children's books to journal articles. She enjoys popular culture, reading contemporary fiction and nonfiction, crafts, and spending time with her cats. With a keen interest in science, Srishti is particularly drawn to beats covering medicine, sustainability, gene studies, and anything biology-related.

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