Abstract
Space-division multiplexing (SDM) is a promising technology for significantly increasing the capacity of a single fiber or waveguide. Various SDM fibers, including few-mode fibers (FMFs), multi-core fibers (MCFs), and orbital angular momentum fibers (OAMFs), demonstrate distinct advantages in fiber links, driving a prevailing trend toward their parallel utilization. Photonic integrated circuits extend SDM from long-distance fibers to chip-scale interconnects. However, mode-field mismatches between fibers and chips pose compatibility challenges. Here, we develop diverse fiber-chip couplers via fiber/3D/2D chip hybrid integration to achieve seamless “fiber-to-fiber” and “fiber-to-chip” mode-field conversions. Building on this, we integrate large-scale, multifunctional 2D silicon chips to construct a fiber-chip-fiber system compatible with FMF, MCF, OAMF, and single-mode fibers. This parallel communication successfully demonstrates 288 channels (8 spatial modes and 36 wavelengths) and 30-Tbit/s capacity. This work establishes a universal multi-dimensional parallelization communication architecture, paving the way for next-generation multi-dimensional data transmission and management.
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Data availability
The data that supports the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18241349). All other data used in this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (62125503, 62261160388 (J.W.)), the National Key R&D Program of China (2025YFE0102200 (J.W.)), the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (2023AFA028 (J.W.)), the Technology Innovation Program of Hubei Province (Major Science and Technology Project) (2024BAA001(J.W.)), the Hubei Optical Fundamental Research Center (HBO2025TQ004(J.W.)), the High Quality Development Special Project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (J.W.), and the China Association for Science and Technology Youth Talent Support Engineering Doctoral Program (K.L.).
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J.W. developed the concept. J.W., K.L., and C.C. conceived the experiment. J.W. provided experimental conditions. G.Y., C.C., K.L., G. W., H. C., and B.H. performed the experiment and acquired the experimental data. K.L., C.C., and J.W. carried out the data analyses. C.C. provided the silica chip. K.L. and J.W. wrote the original manuscript. All authors contributed to revising the paper. J.W. and K. L. finalized the paper. J.W. supervised the project.
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Li, K., Cai, C., Yan, G. et al. Towards universal multi-dimensional parallelization communications by direct diverse fiber/3D/2D chip hybrid integration. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70455-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70455-7
