EU-funded scientists used a property of light – its orbital angular momentum (OAM) – to boost transmission capacity in optical systems and enhance performance of optical components such as optical switches in data centres.
The current growth rates of network data traffic are largely being driven by services that dramatically increase internet usage. Video-on-demand, social network and cloud computing services are severely stretching the performance of data centres and could affect the functionality of the network.
Further information: Twisted light boosts optical communications