On the Benefits of Hollow-Core Fiber in Next-Generation Optical Networks [Invited]

While silica-based fibers have been the go-to solution in optical communications for the past 50 years, recent advancements in Hollow-Core Fibers (HCF) (in which the optical signal is transmitted in a hollow, air-filled core) are paving the way toward 6G-and-beyond applications that are expected to require extremely-high throughput and ultra-low latency. In this paper, we overview three use cases of HCF deployment: 1) HCF for minimizing the number of edge data centers (edgeDC), 2) HCF for cost-efficient capacity scaling, and 3) HCF for energy-efficient high-power amplification. We provide a synthesis of numerical results showing that HCF enables savings by 1) up to 29% in edgeDC number, 2) up to 50% in network cost per Tbps, and 3) up to 50% in EDFA power consumption per Tbps.