September 2, 2025
3 Min read
New “glass straw” fibers could speed up the internet
A cable design that sends light in the air rather than solid glass could cut the signal loss and make long -distance transmissions cheaper
Typical optical fibers are made up of solid and solid glass wires. Adjusting the design could allow them to transport more data to longer distances.
Phillip Hayson / Science Science
A new type of hollow optical fiber promises to strengthen the amount of data that can be transported in each strand of glass and do it over longer distances. This could help make telecommunications systems faster and more efficient.
Design, described in Nature photonics September 1st1Replaces the slim solid glass wire of hair whose typical fibers are made by a system of “straws” of glass, in which five small cylinders, each containing two nested cylinders, are attached to the inside of a main cylinder. The diameter of each tube is finely adjusted in such a way that space can only accommodate the light of certain wavelengths. This means that when a light impulse with an appropriate wavelength is sent to the hollow central gap, it will remain there, rather than escape.
“We really think it could be a transformer,” explains the co-author Francesco Poletti, photonic researcher and materials science at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom.
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“If the new fiber can be easily manufactured and installed and is sustainable, the result could be a faster and better classic internet,” said Rod Van Meter, quantum network engineer at Keio University in Tokyo.
Fibers that contain hollow -nested hollow glass tubes can prevent light from escaping.
Prof Francesco Poletti and Dr Greg Jasion, University of Southampton
The fibers will be produced by a start-up called Lumenisity, a Southampton spin-off which was bought by Microsoft in 2022. A typical fiber of glass is made by melt a piece of glass, then stretching it to produce a bit of the desired thickness. To make their hollow fibers, researchers start with a larger version of their design – measuring approximately 20 centimeters in diameter. The hollows are under pressure during stretching, so that the configuration remains the same as the entire width structure of 100 micrometers.
Connect
The hollow optical fibers of various conceptions already exist and have found niche applications, for example, in the connection of the many computer units in the data centers, where the speed is petrol (light moves 45% more quickly through hollow and air tubes than by solid glass). Van Meter calls for the increase in speed “a dramatic change for which people will pay a lot of money”.
Poletti says he has perfected design for over ten years and that it is the first that could really replace fibers in consumer applications. The optical fibers that transport most of the internet traffic in the world has improved little in the past four decades. They lose half the light they transmit every 15 km from about 15 km for the most advanced versions – mainly because it is absorbed by glass. Poletti and the design of his colleagues lose half of the light every 33 km. This means that the stations used to stimulate and re-transmit signals could be located further on the other than they are currently. “If the new technology arrives and says that you can skip a building both or three is a very important cost saving,” said Poletti.
In addition to cutting losses, hollow fibers can transport more than 1,000 times more power and can do it on a wide spectrum of wavelengths – including single -visible spectrum light pullers that are generally used for quantum communication systems. Common fibers are generally only effective in “telecommunications wavelengths” infrared of approximately 1.5 micrometer.
“This result is very interesting for the community of quantum communication”, explains Tracy Northup, experimental physicist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Until now, hollow fibers have been prohibitively expensive even for small-scale laboratory experiences, she adds. “We, in the research community, can hope that level production could considerably reduce prices in the future.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first publication September 2, 2025.
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