Feature: Optical communications


Focusing the laser on a more


connected future By Warren Harvard, Country Manager UK, and Scott Jordan, Head of Photonics, Physik Instrumente


T


he Internet of Tings has already gained serious momentum, with a seemingly endless list of everyday devices now offering various


connectivity options, with increasing data transmission rates. It is therefore imperative for the communications industry to remove bottlenecks wherever possible, and free space optical (FSO) communication – using lasers to wirelessly transmit information at very high speeds – could be the perfect solution.


Out with the old For those who remember the pains of dial-up Internet, including the countless


hours spent patiently waiting for web pages to load, it felt like a massive leap forward when this sluggish technology was superseded by much faster broadband services, operating at wider bandwidths to squeeze the most out of traditional phone lines. Progress didn’t stop there, and copper connections were eventually replaced with optical fibres, offerering even greater data transfer speeds, paving the way for effortless HD content streaming, video calling and online gaming.


Underperforming uplinks Although optical fibre connections are now more readily found, ground- to-satellite and satellite-to-satellite


28 July/August 2023 www.electronicsworld.co.uk


communications still rely on RF transmissions to beam information through the Earth’s atmosphere and across the vacuum of space. RF technologies use low-frequency radiation as a carrier wave, which is extremely useful in ground-to-ground telecommunications, because it allows signals to travel relatively undisturbed through solid objects, typically opaque to visible light. However, this has little benefit for satellite uplinks, and the low energy state of RF waves limits the amount of information they can carry. RF transmissions are also inherently not focusable, with their wide beam divergence angles causing significant power loss over long distances, resulting


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