Sumitomo Electric Renews World Record of Lowest Loss Optical Fiber

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has set a new world record for the lowest loss of optical fiber, 0.1419 dB/km.

As the demand for communication capacity is skyrocketing over the world, there have been increasing needs for improvement in the performance of optical communication systems. For such improvement, reduction in optical fiber's transmission loss is an effective solution. Since the commercialization of ultra-low loss fiber*¹ in 1988, Sumitomo Electric has been pioneering the cutting-edge technologies including transmission loss reduction. With these technologies, the Company has been supplying ultra-low loss fibers that have the lowest transmission losses among the commercial products.

Now Sumitomo Electric has advanced the technology of fiber-glass and polymer coating and successfully reduced the transmission loss further down to 0.1419 dB/km at a wavelength of 1560 nm, setting a new world record for the lowest loss of optical fiber. We will continuously develop the technologies for offering the very best products, and contribute to expansion of communication capacity especially in trans-oceanic submarine communication systems.

This work has been accepted as a post-deadline paper*² at Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2017 held in Los Angeles, and will be presented on March 23, 2017.

*1 Ultra-low loss fiber
Optical fiber whose core is composed of pure silica (SiO2) and has extremely low transmission loss. Most typically, Sumitomo Electric's Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL and Z-PLUS Fiber™ 130 ULL have transmission losses as low as 0.152 dB/km at a wavelength of 1550 nm, which are the lowest among the commercial products.

*2 Post-deadline paper
Paper that is regarded as important cutting-edge research work and accepted after the deadline for regular papers.