Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM)
have found a new mechanism to transmit light through optical fibers. Their
discovery marks the first practical application of a Nobel-Prize-winning
phenomenon that was proposed in 1958.
Assistant Professor Arash Mafi and doctoral student Salman
Karbasi harnessed “Anderson localization” to create an optical fiber with a
strong scattering mechanism that traps the beam of light as it traverses the
fiber. The work was done in collaboration with Karl Koch, a scientist with
Corning Inc.
Data transmission through conventional optical fibers – in
which only one spatial channel of light traverses the fiber – is the backbone
of the Internet. Such single-core fibers, however, are reaching the limits of
their information-carrying capacity, says Mafi.