This workshop will delve into the real-world potential of anti-resonant hollow-core fibers (AR-HCFs) and their role in shaping the future of optical systems. Praised for their ultra-low latency, low loss, and minimal nonlinearity, AR-HCFs have captured the attention of both academia and industry. Yet, moving from laboratory breakthroughs to large-scale deployment presents significant challenges—from manufacturing at scale and mitigating CO₂ absorption, to achieving reliable fusion splicing. The first session will focus on the fiber itself— its design, performance, and the technical hurdles that must be overcome for large-scale production.
The second session will consider HCF applications. Today, data center interconnects (DCI) dominate the discussion around HCF, leveraging lower latency to nearly double the area for DC placement. But will DCI remain the primary driver, or will other segments—such as long-haul network or intra–data center links-benefit too? Discussions will also address the economic factors that could shape broader adoption.
- What are the main technical challenges in scaling AR-HCF manufacturing for commercial deployment?
- What advancements are needed to achieve reliable fusion splicing with AR-HCFs (HCF-HCF, and SSMF-HCF)?
- How can Gas absorption in AR-HCFs be mitigated to ensure consistent performance across environments?
- Will HCF deployment be limited to DCI, or will it also cover other markets that are less latency sensitive such as Long haul, submarine…? Or inside DC where length are limited and latency saving will be more limited ?
- Will HCF deployment trigger development of really different WDM systems than current ones (much higher power optical amplifiers, different optical bandwidths, bidirectional), or current systems are suitable to support HCF?
- What is an acceptable cost point to see deployment of HCF (having in mind that outside China, G654 that outperforms G652 has seen only marginal deployments) and will it possible to reach it?
Organizers
-
Gabriel Charlet
Huawei Technologies France, France
-
Lauren Dallachiesa
Nokia, United States
-
Hesham Sakr
Microsoft, United Kingdom
-
Jiajing Tu
Jinan University, China