Page 24 - Autumn 2024

Industry News

MORE DEVELOPMENTS

IN OPTOELECTRONICS

Fibre Optic Cables to sense for Damage in Lightmatter achieves 16-wavelength
Critical Infrastructure Bidirectional Link on Single-mode Optical Fibre
A 5.1 million euro project is underway to ascertain Lightmatter, a specialised photonic
whether fibre-optic cables can be used as sensors supercomputing developer, has developed a
to detect hidden damage in critical infrastructure 16-wavelength bidirectional Dense Wavelength
such as bridges, railways, tunnels and energy Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical link that can
pipelines. operate on one strand of single-mode fibre, an
advance that could enable the creation of next-
Known as the ECSTATIC project, it is being coordinated
generation AI data centres.
by Aston University with a Victorian railway viaduct
being used as the first live test site. Laser light pulses The achievement, which uses Lightmatter’s Passage
are being directed through existing fibre optic cables interconnect and Guide laser technologies, has been
with the aim of picking up subtle structural shifts, described as “ a significant breakthrough that has
stresses and vibrations in real-time. This is seen as shattered previous limitations on fibre bandwidth
being a preferable alternative to deploying physical density and spectral utilisation” which “sets a new
sensors across the entire transport and energy benchmark for high-performance resilient data
networks. centre interconnects”.

Ultra-precise laser pulses are sent through buried The development is a response to the rise of complex
fibre optic cables. As trains pass above, the fibres trillion-parameter Mixture of Experts (MoE) models
subtly flex and vibrate, altering how the light behaves and the scaling of AI workloads which have become
inside the cables. The phase and polarisation of the increasingly constrained by bandwidth and radix (I/O
light change so as to create a ‘fingerprint’ of the port count) limitations in data centre infrastructure.
forces acting inside the structure.
Lightmatter’s Passage technology can deliver 800
The changes are measured and interpreted using Gbps bidirectional bandwidth (400 Gbps transmit
a special photonic chip and advanced AI signal and 400 Gbps receive) per single-mode fibre for
processing that does not interrupt existing internet distances of several hundred metres, advancing
traffic or deployment of new fibre optic cables. chip I/O design by simultaneously increasing both
radix and bandwidth per fibre relative to current co-
Professor David Webb, ECSTATIC project coordinator,
packaged optics solutions.
states:
Commercial bidirectional transmission on a single
“Our aim is to create a global nervous system for
fibre has so far generally been limited to two
critical infrastructure. We are hoping to turn existing
wavelengths, with achieving 16 wavelengths requiring
fibre optic cables into a 24/7 early warning system,
multiple or specialised fibres. Standard single-mode
detecting the tiniest tremors or stress fractures
before they become catastrophic. If successful, fibre, while offering high bandwidth potential, does
it will be the difference between fixing a fault and not inherently maintain the polarisation state of the
cleaning up a tragedy”. light, unlike the more costly polarisation-maintaining
fibre. Now, by achieving polarisation sensitivity,
Reference: ‘New European Photonics Project aims to prevent Bridge
Collapses’, Optical Connections, 8th. August Lightmatter has been able to use single-mode fibre
for its bidirectional DWDM technology.

24
Become a member: https://membermojo.co.uk/ie
Become a subscriber: https://membermojo.co.uk/subscriber
Become a sponsor: https://membermojo.co.uk/sponsor