Multi-band optical systems to enable ultra-high speed transmissions

Current forecasts indicate that the fastest growing IP-traffic is in metro and data center interconnect (DCI) [1]. The exploitation of the entire low-loss spectrum of single-mode fibers (SMF) (from 1260 nm up to 1620 nm) was proposed to avoid the predictable capacity crunch and the eventual need for a new fibre infrastructure roll-out. First analytic result considering multi-band (MB) transmission (from O- to L-band) hint an achievable traffic load exceeding 200 Tb/s for a 500 km link in a single SMF [2].