Sumitomo Electric Launches World’s First Mass-produced Ultra-low Loss, Multi-core Fiber

Sept. 27, 2023

Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has realized the world’s first mass-production of ultra-low loss, multi-core fiber “2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL,” and will launch its sales in October 2023.

Optical fiber is essential to the infrastructure supporting today’s information and telecommunications network society. With the widespread use of bandwidth-hungry network services including 5G mobile communications and global traffic between large-scale datacenters, it is essential to increase the capacity of optical communication systems. In order to expand transmission capacities further, multi-core fiber (MCF) that has plural cores in a single fiber has been actively studied and highly anticipated as a next-generation fiber.

By applying cutting-edge achievements in MCF R&D activities*and low-loss fiber technologies cultivated over 50 years*2, Sumitomo Electric has developed and realized the world’s first mass-production of ultra-low loss MCF “2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL*3.” While a conventional fiber has a single core in which optical signals propagate, 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL, as the name suggests, has two cores in the same outer dimensions as a conventional fiber. The transmission capacity through the 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL can be expanded twofold compared to a conventional single-core fiber because the two cores can carry optical signals independently. With a transmission loss of typically 0.158 dB/km at 1550 nm, the new fiber can be considered an ultra-low loss fiber (0.16 dB/km or less) applicable to a transoceanic submarine systems. A small counter-propagating inter-core cross-talk*4 of -43 dB or less is guaranteed. Also, 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL has equal outer diameters to a conventional single-core fiber (125 μm and 250 μm in glass and coating areas, respectively), and holds excellent environmental reliability and mechanical stability.

Applications of 2C Z-PLUS Fiber™ ULL 

  • Broad areas of submarine network systems, from regional to transoceanic distances
  • Long-haul, high-capacity terrestrial transmission
  • Inter datacenter networks
  • Ultra-low loss required applications:quantum cryptography communications,sensor networks for seismic and fire detection.

Sumitomo Electric will continue to cultivate its world-leading R&D capabilities and mass-production technologies for optical fiber as an essential infrastructure of the information society, contributing to the realization of high-quality optical communications network systems.

Learn More

Sponsored Recommendations

AI and Network Convergence: Transforming Global Connectivity

March 7, 2025
In today’s hyperconnected world, rolling out and managing profitable, high-performance networks for access and transport will require innovative architectural approaches. The ...

Innovations Optical Transceivers

March 10, 2025
The continual movement around artificial intelligence (AI) cluster environments is driving new sales of optical transceiver sales and the adoption of linear pluggable optics (...

Metro Networks Evolutions

March 4, 2025
Join experts at EXFO and Ekinops in this webinar that will review the evolving metro-centric requirements and the technologies emerging to meet them.

Unveiling the Synergy Between AI and Optical Networking

March 12, 2025
Join us for an engaging discussion with industry experts on the intersection of AI and optics. Moderated by Sean Buckley, editor-in-chief of Lightwave+BTR, this panel will explore...