Trans-oceanic class ultra-long-haul transmission using multi-core fiber

Space-division multiplexing with uncoupled multi-core fiber is a promising technology to drastically increase a fiber capacity in optical communication systems. Trans-oceanic class ultra-long-haul transmission was successfully achieved by using 7-core MCF with suppressed inter-core crosstalk. By using a combination of MCF and spectral efficient modulation format, the fiber capacity could be increased from 28.8 Tbit/s to 140 Tbit/s and a capacity-distance product exceeding 1 Exabit/s·km was obtained in 7 cores x 201 λ x 100 Gbit/s transmission over 7326 km. These results indicate that the MCF transmission will be one of promising candidates for future ultra-high capacity optical communication systems.