Corning Announces Bendable "nanoStructures" Optical Fiber

Corning Incorporated announced a "nanoStructures" optical fiber design that allows the cabled fiber to be bent around very tight corners with virtually no signal loss. This is especially useful in FTTH deployments in apartment building because exiting optical fiber installations lose signal strength and effectiveness when bent around corners and routed through a building.



Corning described the nano fiber design as a breakthrough technology because it changes the way light travels through a fiber. The result is fiber that is 100 times more bendable that existing single-mode fiber. The new fiber also enables simpler and more aesthetically pleasing designs for the cable, hardware and equipment used in the deployment.



"This is a game-changing technology for telecommunications applications," said Peter F. Volanakis, president and chief operating officer at Corning. "We have developed an optical fiber cable that is as rugged as copper cable but with all of the bandwidth benefits of fiber. By making fundamental changes in the way light travels in the fiber, we were able to create a new optical fiber that is over 100 times more bendable than standard fibers."



Corning said it has been collaborating with Verizon Communications on this technology. In February of this year, Corning and Verizon commissioned a joint working team to solve the problems of multiple dwelling unit installation using this new fiber solution.



Corning plans to introduce a full suite of optical fiber, cable and hardware and equipment solutions based on its nanoStructures technology this fall.

http://www.corning.com