An optical fiber of 270 kilometers has been transformed into the world’s longest laser, an achievement that its inventors trust will lead to a major new outlook on information transmission and secure communications.

The Engineering academics at Aston University, UK, are leading research into ultra-long fiber lasers, to create a platform proficient of delivering ‘next generation’ information transmission, including telecommunications and broadband.

When normal telephone conversations or data sent over the internet are converted to light in order to travel through standard optical fibers the signals lose around 5 per cent of their power for every kilometer that they travel.

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The signals then have to be amplified to ensure that they reach their destination, a process which creates background noise and affects the signals quality.

Using a physical process called the Raman Effect*, a natural event that affects light passing through a material and fiber Bragg gratings to reflect light at both ends of the fiber, the team can create a uniform distribution of light through a cavity in the optical fiber. This scheme also presents an ultra-long fiber laser offering new opportunities for handling ultra-fast communications at a high operational capacity.

*Note: The Raman Effect (a natural phenomenon that affects light passing through a material) is used to transform a long optical fiber into an ultra-long laser. Lasers inject light at each end of the fiber, which makes some of the fiber’s atoms give out more energy and emit photons (particles of light) of a longer wavelength. These photons are reflected back into the fiber by special mirrors at each end of the optical link. The fiber then stores a stable, uniform amount of laser light that travels with the signals and strengthens them, enabling them to move across the fiber at full power without suffering any loss, so removing the need to amplify the signals.