Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 19 (Reporter Wei Mengjia) Chinese scientists have recently made breakthroughs in the fields of optical communications and 6G. They are the first in the world to realize cross-network integration between optical fiber communications and wireless communication systems. The data transmission rate of the independently developed "fiber-wireless integrated communication system" has set a new record. The results were published online in Nature on the early morning of the 19th.

The improvement of AI data center computing power and the vigorous development of the next-generation wireless communication network 6G require high-speed and low-latency transmission of signals in diverse scenarios. However, there is a "bandwidth gap" between optical fiber communication and wireless communication in signal architecture and hardware constraints.

To this end, Peking University teamed up with R&D teams such as Pengcheng Laboratory, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, and the National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center to create the concept of "fiber-wireless integrated converged communications" and adopted integrated optical solutions to successfully develop ultra-wideband integrated photonic devices above 250GHz (gigahertz). The new system developed on this basis realizes single-channel 512Gbps (gigabits per second) signal transmission for optical fiber communication and 400Gbps single-channel signal transmission for wireless communication.

The picture shows the concept diagram of "Optical Fiber-Wireless Integrated Converged Communication System". (Photo provided by interviewee)

“The new system breaks the ‘bandwidth gap’ and sets a new record in data transmission rate.” Wang Xingjun, corresponding author of the paper and deputy dean of the School of Electronics at Peking University, said that this system can support dual-mode transmission of optical fiber communication and wireless communication, significantly improving the anti-interference capability. The team also simulated a 6G large-scale user access scenario and achieved a multi-channel real-time 8K video access demonstration of 86 channels. The transmission bandwidth was more than 10 times higher than the current 5G standard.

The reviewers of "Nature" believe that this work "makes an important contribution to the advancement of integrated optical and terahertz communication systems."

Wang Xingjun said that the new system has great application potential in 6G base stations, wireless data centers and other scenarios, and is expected to lay a research foundation for the next generation of ultra-wideband, high-speed optical fiber-wireless integrated converged communications.