Wideband Transmission in Low Core-Count Multi-Core Fibers

We explore S, C + L-band transmission in low-core count multi-core fibers (MCFs). After reviewing progress in wideband transmission demonstrations in both SMF and MCFs we focus on two experiments demonstrating 57 km, 1 Pb/s transmission with 20 THz transmission bandwidth and 319 Tb/s transmitted over 3000 km in a 4-core MCF with standard cladding diameter. Finally, we briefly explore the potential benefit of increased spectral efficiency in MCF transmission by exploiting reduced (IC-XT) at lower wavelengths.