This technology could one day increase the amount of data that can be transmitted over fiber optic cable by 8-16 times.

The current information age is built upon a skeletal framework of fiber optic cables capable of delivering data across vast distances at mind-boggling speeds. This modern day miracle is achieved by encoding laser light and sending it through these optic superhighways, but as the world marches boldly into the future, these networks will need to find innovative ways to keep up with ever-increasing data demands.

Researchers at the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University in Finland have a tempestuous idea that could possibly make optic cables even better at transmitting vast amounts of data. Described as a "hurricane of light" or a vortex, this technique relies on the manipulation of nanoparticles within an electric field to form geometries known as quasicrystals. These structures resemble tropical hurricanes with arrays of light surrounding dark "eyes" caused by the electric fields.

While more complex symmetries produce more vortices (squares produce one vortex, hexagons produce a double vortex, etc...), the researchers developed a method for creating geometric shapes that can create any kind of vortex. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature Communications.

"This research is on the relationship between the symmetry and the rotationality of the vortex, i.e. what kinds of vortices can we generate with what kinds of symmetries," Aalto University's Päivi Törmä, senior author of the paper, said in a press statement. "Our quasicrystal design is halfway between order and chaos."

To create these unique designs, researchers manipulated 100,000 metallic nanoparticles -- each roughly one-tenth the width of a human hair. But they didn't do this by by focusing on high-energy areas of the electric field, as you might expect.

"An electrical field has hotspots of high vibration and spots where it is essentially dead," doctoral researcher Jani Taskinen, a co-author of the study, said in a press statement. "We introduced particles into the dead spots, which shut down everything else and allowed us to select the field with the most interesting properties for applications."

However, these eye-catching arrangements are not just satiating scientific curiosity -- they actually carry some world-changing potential. Encoding information in these complex domains could provide a huge boost in the amount of data capable of being transmitted through fiber optic cables. The researchers estimate that the boost could be anywhere from eight to 16 times what is theoretically possible with current technologies.

Sadly, it's a long road to move a discovery from the laboratory bench into the real world. But this study proves that the fiber optic technology has yet to reach is full potential.