Scientists use hollow fibre cables to send data at near-light speeds

Scientists have used special hollow fibre optic cables to transmit data at close to the speed of light.

In a project conducted at the University of Southampton, large volumes of data achieved 99.7 per cent of the speed of light when travelling through optical cables with an ultra-thin glass rim.

Light travels 31 per cent slower in glass optical fibres than in a vacuum and while hollowing them out speeds things up, light scatters at the interface between glass and air, limiting the number of wavelengths - and consequently the amount of data - that can be transferred at the same time.

However, the university's project - results of which were published in the journal Nature Photonics - used fibres with ultra-thin glass rims to enable a much wider band of wavelengths to be sent at high speeds simultaneously.

Dr Francesco Poletti of the institution's Optoelectronics Research Centre said: "Previous fibres either have higher bandwidth but high loss, or lower loss but narrower bandwidth. We've achieved both in the same fibre."