Low?Latency WDM Intensity?Modulation and Direct?Detection Transmission Over >100 km Distances in a Hollow Core Fiber

The pervasive digital economy, fueled by developments in datacenter networking and cloud/edge computing, relies ever increasingly on the implementation of short- to metro-range high-capacity, low-latency optical communication links. In this paper, it is demonstrated that low spectrally flat chromatic dispersion ultralow nonlinearity possible hollow-core fibers (HCFs) compared conventional solid-core offer significant potential for transmission intensity-modulation direct-detection (IM-DD) signals over 100-km-scale distances. Specifically, longest HCF-only IM-DD wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) C-band experiments (>100km) without compensation date are reported, achieving reach improvements approximately 5 times 2 using standard single-mode fiber non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber, respectively, same experimental recirculating loop set-up. For >100-km transmission, a >150-µs latency reduction can be obtained HCF. These results, combination with recent progress loss HCFs, indicate such present promising route realization simple, cost-effective, ultra-low-latency WDM links revolutionize networks years come.