“A new type of hollow optical fibre promises to boost the amount of data that can be carried in each glass strand, and to do so over longer distances. This could help to make telecommunications systems faster and more efficient.

The design, described in Nature Photonics on 1 September, replaces the hair-thin wire of solid glass that typical fibres are made from with a system of glass ‘straws’, in which five small cylinders, each containing two nested cylinders, are attached to the inside rim of one main cylinder. The diameter of each tube is finely tuned in such a way that that the space can accommodate light of only certain wavelengths. This means that when a light pulse of an appropriate wavelength is sent down the hollow central gap, it will stay there, rather than escaping.”

From Nature.