Twisted light beams have opened the door for wireless communication 85,000 times faster than broadband Internet speeds. The breakthrough could allow NASA missions or military space satellites to exchange data at ultrahigh speeds.
Lab tests have shown how twisted laser beams can transmit data at speeds up to 2.56 terabits per second — roughly the equivalent of beaming 70 DVDs worth of data in a single second through free space. Such speed easily put broadband Internet's 30 megabits per second to shame.
"We didn't invent the twisting of light, but we took the concept and ramped it up to a terabit-per-second," said Alan Willner, electrical engineering professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
The international team hailing from the U.S., China, Pakistan and Israel used beam-twisting "phase holograms" that are able to twist light beams into a helical shape similar to that of DNA. Each beam's individual twist can effectively create the equivalent of a new data stream channel — similar to a radio having separate channels — without the need for more bandwidth.
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