Corkscrew Light Promises Higher Optical-Communication Data Rates

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Corkscrew light promises higher optical-communication data rates:

The modern world depends on good communication. If you were one of the few who didn't believe that, the recent obsession with video conferences should have convinced you otherwise. The key for video is volume: huge streams of data facilitated by high-capacity optical-fiber communications networks.

It might surprise you to hear that, actually, optical communication is not very efficient. A recent paper shows off a laser that may allow the information density to be increased by using something called orbital angular momentum (OAM).

[...] Our low data rates are due to the limitations of how we manipulate light. Electronics and materials only respond so fast, and that sets limits on what we can do. To get around this, we use multiple tricks. For instance, when we modulate the light, we do not send a single bit but rather a single symbol that corresponds to multiple bits. Depending on how that symbol is encoded, however, you cannot increase the data rate continuously.

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