Optical communication

Moving data with light: fibre systems, silicon photonics and free-space links.

China leads optical communication research, with 38.8% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 12.4%.

Added 14 October 2026. Its top papers were checked for relevance by AI, but its keywords and topic list have not yet been reviewed by hand.

FirstChina38.8%

SecondUnited States12.4%

3.1×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Highlight a country

Standings

1CNChina38.8%2USUnited States12.4%3–4CACanada3.5%3–4GBUnited Kingdom3.5%5–6DEGermany3.2%5–6JPJapan3.1%7INIndia2.4%8EGEgypt2.0%9FRFrance1.8%10–11BEBelgium1.6%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 702 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

China

Everyone else, on a larger scale

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-area	Papers	First	Second	Third
Free-space optical links (terrestrial, satellite, aerial)	147	CNChina25.6%	USUnited States6.4%	JPJapan6.0%
Silicon and silicon-nitride photonic platforms	146	CNChina37.2%	USUnited States18.0%	CACanada4.5%
Fibre transmission systems, signal processing and networks	75	CNChina43.4%	GBUnited Kingdom11.1%	USUnited States8.5%
Modulators, photodetectors and transceivers	69	CNChina39.4%	USUnited States17.6%	CACanada5.5%
Structured light and orbital angular momentum	57	CNChina64.7%	USUnited States6.2%	ZASouth Africa4.9%
Underwater and visible-light wireless communication	54	CNChina52.8%	INIndia6.1%	EGEgypt6.0%
Integrated lasers and optical amplifiers	48	CNChina38.9%	USUnited States19.5%	DEGermany8.2%
Microwave photonics and photonic computing	36	CNChina40.3%	USUnited States23.4%	CACanada4.8%
Optical frequency combs and microcombs	23	CNChina32.8%	USUnited States24.7%	DKDenmark8.7%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change

CNChina 36.1%42.0%+5.9 pts

USUnited States 12.8%12.0%−0.7 pts

CACanada 5.0%1.9%−3.1 pts

GBUnited Kingdom 4.4%2.5%−1.9 pts

DEGermany 3.5%3.0%−0.5 pts

JPJapan 3.4%2.8%−0.6 pts

INIndia 3.1%1.6%−1.4 pts

EGEgypt 1.2%2.8%+1.6 pts

Greyed rows rest on fewer than five papers of credit in one period.

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 373 papers in 2021–2023, 329 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (1,352), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

CNChina47.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
INIndia7.3%of 2026 papers have an author here
USUnited States6.8%of 2026 papers have an author here
JPJapan3.8%of 2026 papers have an author here
GBUnited Kingdom3.6%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess

CNChina 61.8%47.6%+14.2

USUnited States 24.3%9.7%+14.6

JPJapan 26.0%3.7%+22.3

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

1CNZhejiang University3.9%
2CNChinese Academy of SciencesGovernment lab1.9%
3GBUniversity of Southampton1.3%
4USUniversity of California, Santa Barbara1.2%
5CNFudan University1.2%
6CNPeking University1.1%
7CNBeijing University of Posts and Telecommunications1.0%
8SAKing Abdullah University of Science and Technology1.0%
9CNHuazhong University of Science and Technology1.0%
10CNUniversity of Chinese Academy of Sciences1.0%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

Sector	All	CN	US	CA
Universities	76.8%	77.4%	70.6%	91.5%
Research facilities	12.7%	15.2%	5.8%	0.5%
Companies	5.1%	1.5%	20.6%	3.7%
Government labs	3.8%	5.8%	2.1%	3.5%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

36.2% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

CNUSChina with United States30
CNHKChina with Hong Kong17
CNGBChina with United Kingdom16
GBUSUnited Kingdom with United States16
DEUSGermany with United States12

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

Review of Silicon Photonics Technology and Platform Development
Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2021
978citations
Roadmapping the next generation of silicon photonics
Nature Communications, 2024BECAUS
852citations
Perspective on the future of silicon photonics and electronics
Applied Physics Letters, 2021US
640citations
Hertz-linewidth semiconductor lasers using CMOS-ready ultra-high-Q microresonators
Nature Photonics, 2021US
609citations
Microcomb-driven silicon photonic systems
Nature, 2022CNUS
443citations

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

"optical communication" OR "optical fiber communication" OR "silicon photonics" OR "free-space optical" OR "coherent optical" OR "optical interconnect"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: Optical Wireless Communication Technologies; Photonic and Optical Devices; Optical Network Technologies; Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics; Semiconductor Lasers and Optical Devices; Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies; Advanced Photonic Communication Systems; Photonic Crystal and Fiber Optics. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025: 6,999
In the top 10%: 702
In the top 1%: 73
Countries with credit: 54
Credit with no known country: 7.2%

Every one of the 884 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 36 were left out as not about optical communication

The most cited of those left out:

Nanometric Precision Distance Metrology via Hybrid Spectrally Resolved and Homodyne Interferometry in a Single Soliton Frequency Microcomb104 citations
A Survey on Integrated Access and Backhaul Networks64 citations
Switching dynamics of dark-pulse Kerr frequency comb states in optical microresonators59 citations
Ultrashort dissipative Raman solitons in Kerr resonators driven with phase-coherent optical pulses58 citations
Non-diffracting and self-accelerating Bessel beams with on-demand tailored intensity profiles along arbitrary trajectories54 citations
Versatile tuning of Kerr soliton microcombs in crystalline microresonators54 citations
Brief Review of Recent Developments in Fiber Lasers52 citations
Review on Fiber-Optic Vortices and Their Sensing Applications50 citations
Creating perfect composite vortex beams with a single all-dielectric geometric metasurface42 citations
Second harmonic generation of laser beams in transverse mode locking states41 citations
Coherent optical frequency combs: From principles to applications39 citations
Synthetic spin dynamics with Bessel-Gaussian optical skyrmions37 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method