Light polarity communication

2002/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika

Optical fiber takes light as a support for communication, that is, an electromagnetic wave. So far the frequency and amplitude of this wave has been used to encode information, but American physicists Gregory VanWigger and Rajarshi Roy have shown that wave polarization can also encode information.

This is not the first time that the polarity of light has been used to communicate. But in previous sessions the polarity state directly coded the information. In American research, on the contrary, the message is encoded by the modulation of a special annular laser. The laser uses vertigo atoms to amplify the signal.

However, when light travels through optical fiber, polarization can undergo abrupt changes. To solve it, physicists divide the ray and emit the second with a small delay. Comparing both signals, the original message can be easily read without errors.