All Optical Solution: Cruising the Superhighway on a Beam of Light

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Optical fiber such as this can be packed with semiconductor materials to manipulate light. Photo credit Neil Baril
Optical fiber such as this can be packed with semiconductor materials to manipulate light. Photo credit Neil Baril

The Internet is often called the information superhighway, but the real superhighway is the optical fiber that connects computers around the world at the speed of light, according to John Badding, Penn State associate professor of chemistry. “Light can travel around the globe seven times per second,” he remarked. “And fibers can channel torrential amounts of information. It’s what makes the Internet as we know it possible. If not for optical fiber, our everyday lives would look very different.”


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