Optical engineers at the University of Central Florida have developed a system that improves the bandwidth of transmission via optical fibers, such as those used in transmitting cable TV and Internet data, to compensate for attenuation (signal losses) in the fiber.

Their device makes a copy of the attenuated incoming signal, and “mixes” it with a laser beam in a length of specially designed optical fiber. This generates two additional strong signals that are perfectly in phase with the data signal, one with a frequency just higher than the original and one with a frequency just lower. These signals can then act as a scaffold that, after interaction with a second copy of the data signal in a second fiber, removes the noise and generates a pristine version.