VI Systems GmbH of Berlin, Germany (a fabless spin-off of the Technical University of Berlin and the A. F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St Petersburg, Russia) has demonstrated a record transmission distance of 2.2km of multimode OM4 fiber at a data rate of 54Gb/s. The standard graded index fiber is specified with 50/125μm.
Developed with the help of advanced computer simulation software (implemented to advance the performance of the firm's laser products), the new 850nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) design features a narrow optical spectrum at a high optical output power.
The transmission experiment is based on a conventional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation format. This on-off keying (OOK) modulation scheme favors low latency performance in communication networks compared with more complex higher-order modulation.
Details of the achievement were published on 14 April (G Stepniak et al, '54 Gbps OOK transmission using single-mode VCSEL up to 2.2 km MMF', Electronics Letters vol52 (2016) no8, p633).