The information in the whole planet might be sent on only one of these chips.

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• optical
• photonics
• lasers
• speeds
• supercomputer
• corcoran
• transmission

Such tools could lessen the web's environmental effect.

The new data transfer record was recently established by the research community. They were able to transfer 1.84 petabits of data per second with only a single computer chip. That's the equivalent as 122 million Netflix movies playing simultaneously.

Asbjrn Arvad Jrgensen states, "We have transmitted all of that at once." He studied physics at the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark.

Bill Corcoran thinks that's amazing. In the past, doing this would have required a large number of chips and a lot of extra power. In Melbourne, Australia, Corcoran studies physics at Monash University. He stayed away from the study. Yet, he has extensive expertise in this area. His team has been the record holders for fastest data transfer utilising a single chip from the year 2020.

The breaking of records at this rate is fantastic, as Corcoran points out.

On October 20, 2022, the Danish group published their findings in Nature Photonics.

These scientists used a unique property of light known as an optical frequency comb. A laser is shone through a hoover chamber to create one. A beautifully composed rainbow appears, with each hue in its proper place. "Rainbow lasers" is what Corcoran's kid, age 6, refers to them as.

In 2005, the Nobel Prize in Physics was split between the scientists that discovered how to make a rainbow out of laser light. But, their method required equipment "the size of a double bed," as Corcoran puts it.

Tobias Kippenberg participated in the 2007 effort that successfully implemented a similar method using semiconductor chips. Microcombs are the new name for rainbows made in this fashion. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne is where Kippenberg spends his days at work. Finding this out was "rewarding and exhilarating," he adds. The field is not what he expected it to be back then, he says.

Like little rulers, microcombs allow for very accurate measuring. They are being used by researchers to improve the accuracy of clocks and to identify illnesses. It's a no-brainer that microcombs would enhance electronic communication.

Data's bright future

Of course, the information sent through the Internet never has to use a single wire. In reality, as of right now, not even a single supercomputer can produce 1.84 petabits per second. For these and other testing purposes, the researchers had to make copies of the data.

Although there is now no pressing need to transfer data at such a high rate, scientists are preparing for the future. The long perspective is what we take, says Bill Corcoran. He predicts that in the next decade, certain intercity or international connections would need petabit-scale data transfer speeds.

Jrgensen speculates that such a high speed might be put to use in data centres even sooner. He further claims that the 8,251 light rays might be sent in various directions from a single chip. Thus many light pipes might be supported by a single chip.

There is much to accomplish before the new technology may be used in practise. Corcoran notes that, among other things, engineers have yet to figure out how to put several modulators onto a single platform. The number of light beams must be equal to the number of modulators. It is currently difficult to conceive of a chip with thousands of modulators. He thinks that even getting to 100 would be "an remarkable advance." Nonetheless, according to Corcoran, the new study's significance lies in the "energy and cost reductions" it offers. The new technique requires fewer lasers than the standard approach. As a result, less energy is wasted.

The current internet infrastructure is rather power hungry. However, data consumption is growing at an alarming rate. Energy consumption from intensive computer activities like cryptomining and AI system training is already a climate danger. The new data transportation invention may mitigate the rapid rise in power demand that has accompanied the exponential rise in data use. And that may reduce the internet's effect on the environment.

CITATIONS

• Journal: A. A. Jørgensen et al. Petabit-per-second data transmission using a chip-scale microcomb ring resonator source. Nature Photonics. Vol. 16, published online October 20, 2022. doi: 10.1038/s41566-022-01082-z.
• Journal: B. Corcoran et al. Ultra-dense optical data transmission over standard fibre with a single chip source. Nature Communications. Vol. 11, published May 22, 2020. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16265-x.
  
• Journal: P. Del’Haye et al. Optical frequency comb generation from a monolithic microresonator. Nature. Vol. 450, December 20, 2007, p. 1214. doi: 10.1038/nature06401.
  
• Webpage: The Nobel Foundation. The 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. October 4, 2005.