Previously, the world record was set for data transfer speed at
109 terabits per second, transfered over a single fiber optic
cable. The sneaky bit about that piece of information, however,
is that though the 109 terabit transfer was achieved through a
single cable, the actual cable had seven “light-guiding cores”
inside of it, rather than a single core. The second fastest
speed was 101.7 terabits per second, but employed 370 separate
lasers, each carrying a small amount of information. Now,
Professor Wolfgang Freude and his colleagues have set the record
for fastest data transfer using a single laser at 26 terabits
per second. Professor Freude comments on the previous data
speed: “Already a 100 terabits per second experiment has been
demonstrated. The problem was they didn’t have just one laser,
they had something like 370 lasers, which is an incredibly
expensive thing. If you can imagine 370 lasers, they fill racks
and consume several kilowatts of power.” Using one laser with
short pulses — with said pulses