Sumitomo Electric Industries : Launches World’s First Mass-produced Ultra-low Loss, Multi-core Fiber
September 22, 2023 at 01:00 am EDT
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Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has realized the world's first mass-production of ultra-low loss, multi-core fiber "2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL," and will launch its sales in October 2023.
Optical fiber is an essential infrastructure supporting today's information and telecommunications network society. With the widespread of bandwidth-hungry network services including 5G mobile communications and global traffic between large-scale datacenters, it is essential to increase the capacity of optical communication systems. In order to expand transmission capacities further, multi-core fiber (MCF) that has plural cores in a single fiber has been actively studied and highly anticipated as a next-generation fiber.
By applying cutting-edge achievements in MCF R&D activities*1 and low-loss fiber technologies cultivated over 50 years*2, Sumitomo Electric has developed and realized the world's first mass-production of ultra-low loss MCF "2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL*3." While a conventional fiber has a single core in which optical signals propagate, 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL, as the name suggests, has 2 cores in the same outer dimensions as a conventional fiber. The transmission capacity through the 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL can be expanded twofold compared to a conventional single-core fiber, because respective 2 cores can carry optical signals independently. Its transmission loss is typically 0.158 dB/km at 1550 nm, to be considered as an ultra-low loss fiber (0.16 dB/km or less) applicable to a transoceanic submarine system. A small counter-propagating inter-core cross-talk*4 of -43 dB or less is guaranteed. Also, 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL has equal outer diameters to a conventional single-core fiber (125 μm and 250 μm in glass and coating areas, respectively), and holds excellent environmental realizabilities and mechanical stabilities.
Table1 Typical characteristics of 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL
Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. published this content on 22 September 2023 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 22 September 2023 04:59:07 UTC.
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is one of the world's leaders of electric wires and cables, and fiber optic manufacturing. Net sales (including intragroup) break down by sectors of activity as follows:
- automotive (54.8%): cable beams, rubber anti-vibration products, etc.;
- energy and environment (21.1%): copper electric wires, electric cables, magnet wires, power cables, etc.;
- electronic (7.8%): electronic wires, semiconductors components, electronic components, printed circuit boards, etc.;
- information and communication (7.5%): fiber optic cables, optic components, network cabling systems, etc.;
- others (8.8%): primarily steel special wires.
Net sales break down geographically as follows: Japan (42.7%), China (19.7%), Asia (10.7%), the United States (11.8%), the Americas (4.2%) and other (10.9%).