April 8, 2025

Accelerating Practical Application of 4-core Optical Fiber with the Same Cladding Diameter as Current Optical Fiber and Advancing Power-over-fiber Technology

It is becoming increasingly necessary to expand network communication capacity to accommodate the increase in data transmission between datacenters due to the evolution of generative artificial intelligence and the increase in data transmission due to the spread of extended-reality services. To expand network-communication capacity, it is necessary to not only improve the capacity of the transmission system but also the transmission medium, amely, optical fiber. A multi-core optical fiber (MCF), in which multiple cores (i.e., the paths through which light travels along the optical fiber) are arranged spatially in a single optical fiber, has been developed, and a 12-core MCF--the world's highest core density--is appearing. Technologies for applying optical fiber to non-communication areas, such as measuring loss by using the scattering of light passing through optical fiber, have also been developed. Kazuhide Nakajima, a senior distinguished researcher at NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories, is working to put 4-core MCF into practical use as soon as possible and apply MCF to non-communication areas. We talked with him about the essential technologies for deploying 4-core MCF in the field, power-over-fiber (PoF), i.e., optical-power-supply technology, using MCF, international standardization of MCF, and the importance of connection points in research and the mindset required to find and use them.

April 8, 2025

Creating a Map or Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Use in Tactile Experience Design

Many tactile illusions lurk within our daily lives, such as feeling a sensation that doesn't exist or feeling that someone else's fingers are your own. This report hears from NTT Distinguished Researcher Takumi Yokosaka about his research into understanding the sensory experience of human beings by using these illusions and the many tactile illusions published on the Illusion Forum, an NTT website to experience such illusions.