Abstract

Recent years have seen the growth of significant research activities around the world directed towards developing new optical fibres and associated technology capable of supporting the increased data transmission capacities and reduced costs per transmitted bit that will be required to satisfy societies every increasing data demands during the coming decades. The primary focus has been on exploiting the spatial dimension and to define multiple distinguishable pathways within the cross-section of the fibre. These multiple pathways might be defined by individual cores, by the individual modes of a single multimode core, or combinations thereof to achieve the very highest spatial channel densities. The general approach is referred to as Space Division Multiplexing (SDM) and suitable transmission media based on individual solid fibres, bundles of reduced cladding fibres and hollow core photonic bandgap fibres have been proposed and are being actively explored [1].

© 2015 IEEE