Fiber Optic

As you might imagine, installing seismic sensors on the ocean floor isn't an easy task. Recently, however, scientists were able to detect seabed seismic activity using something that was already down there – a fiber optic telecommunications cable.

Fiber optics allows for ultra-fast communication systems, and more data can be crammed in by "twisting" the light. Now, Australian researchers have developed a device to decode beams that’s small enough to fit over the end of a fiber optic cable.

​Medical devices such as catheters extend from within a patient's body out through an opening in their skin, and unfortunately those openings often become infected. Thanks to new research, however, ultraviolet optical fibers may eventually keep such infections from occurring.

University of Adelaide researchers have created a fiber optic probe that can reach deep into the brain to capture images and measure temperature. It’s been developed to learn more about hyperthermia to do with drug use, and may lead to new understanding of drug toxicology.​​

While current seismometers can pick up tremors with precision, they’re short-ranged and expensive. Now a Stanford study has demonstrated that an extensive earthquake-detection network could already exist right under our feet: the optical fiber cables piping high-speed internet throughout cities.

​Diagnosing a muscular disorder often requires a painful tissue sample biopsy. Researchers have developed a less invasive alternative, using a thin fiber optic probe to quickly scan and measure the health of muscle tissue. For the first time, the team has now tested it on living muscles.

To counter blood clots, surgeons administer blood thinning drugs throughout a procedure, but knowing when to do so is difficult. By shining light through the patient’s blood, researchers have developed a new system that gives surgeons real-time feedback and alerts them at the first sign of a clot.

A soft, stretchy optical fiber developed at MIT and Harvard appears to be quite a promising candidate for using light to stimulate cells inside the brain, and could possibly even act as an warning light for diseases in other parts of the body.

Using a technique known as Probabilistic Constellation Shaping, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Bell Labs researchers claim to have achieved subsea optical fiber transmission speeds equivalent to streaming more than 10 million HDTV channels simultaneously across a single cable.

Scientists have incorporated light-emitting nanoparticles into glass so that it remains almost perfectly transparent, but glows brightly when stimulated. This new "hybrid glass" may one day be used to create new smart glass devices, including smart 3D displays and remote radiation sensors.

Microsoft and Facebook have announced plans to build "MAREA", a huge subsea cable connecting North America and Europe. Utilizing eight fiber pairs, the cable's initial capacity is estimated to be 160 Tbps, which will make it the highest capacity cable crossing the Atlantic.

Google announced Wednesday that the company will bring gigabit Internet service to certain apartments and condos in San Francisco.