optical communications

The hollowing-out of fiber optics just passed an important milestone: a research team tied to Microsoft and the University of Southampton has reported a hollow‑core optical fiber design that both lowers signal loss below the long‑standing practical floor for silica fiber and propagates light...

Microsoft’s move into hollow‑core optical fiber signals a potential inflection point for high‑speed networking: lab and limited field results show an air‑core design with measured attenuation as low as 0.091 dB/km at 1,550 nm, a substantially lower loss than the practical floor of modern silica...

Microsoft and the University of Southampton have published what the teams describe as a watershed result in optical communications: a hollow‑core optical fiber with measured attenuation of 0.091 dB/km at 1,550 nm, a performance level that — if reproduced in production volumes and field...