Aditya Kakkar

Impact of local oscillator frequency noise on coherent optical systems with electronic dispersion compensation

A theoretical investigation of the equalization-enhanced phase noise (EEPN) and its mitigation is presented. We show with a frequency domain analysis that the EEPN results from the non-linear inter-mixing between the sidebands of the dispersed signal and the noise sidebands of the local oscillator. It is further shown and validated with system simulations that the transmission penalty is mainly due to the slow optical frequency fluctuations of the local oscillator. Hence, elimination of the frequency noise below a certain cut-off frequency significantly reduces the transmission penalty, even when frequency noise would otherwise cause an error floor. The required cut-off frequency increases linearly with the white frequency noise level and hence the linewidth of the local oscillator laser, but is virtually independent of the symbol rate and the accumulated dispersion.

Comprehensive Study of Equalization-Enhanced Phase Noise in Coherent Optical Systems

A thorough analysis of equalization-enhanced phase noise (EEPN) and its impact on the coherent optical system is presented. We show with a time-domain analysis that EEPN is caused due to the interference of multiple delayed versions of the dispersed signal, generated by intermixing of the received dispersed signal, and the noise side bands of the local oscillator (LO) in the photodetectors. We derive statistical properties such as the mean, variance, and error vector magnitude of the received signal influenced with EEPN. We show that in coherent optical systems utilizing electronic dispersion compensation, this noise corresponds to multipath fading in wireless communication systems. Closed-form expressions of necessary LO linewidth and/or mitigation bandwidth for a general system configuration and specified OSNR penalty are given. The expressions for system design parameters, validated with system simulations, show that higher order modulation formats, such as 16-quadrature amplitude modulation and beyond, put stringent demands on the LO linewidth unless a mitigation technique is used.

Carrier Phase Recovery Algorithms for Coherent Optical Circular mQAM Systems

The phase noise tolerance of circular multilevel quadrature amplitude modulation (C-mQAM) constellations employing different carrier phase recovery (CPR) algorithms is studied. A differential decoding scheme and a bit mapping for this type of constellations are proposed. A novel CPR scheme for C-mQAM constellations is also presented. The particular distribution of the constellation points in a C-mQAM signal is exploited to reduce the required Nth power for the removal of the modulation component by a factor of two. Hence, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is drastically reduced. The combined linewidth symbol duration product (ΔνTs) tolerance of different CPR algorithms for C-mQAM constellations is studied and compared with the proposed CPR scheme. The results are analyzed at 3.8e-3 and 1e-2 bit error rate forward error correction limits. The proposed CPR scheme achieves similar ΔνTs tolerance compared to single stage BPS algorithm while its computational complexity is reduced by group factors of 27.2 | 32.3, and 30.5 | 32.6 (in the form of multipliers | adders) for C-16QAM and C-64QAM, respectively.

Mitigation of EEPN in Coherent Optical Systems With Low-Speed Digital Coherence Enhancement

A method for mitigating local oscillator (LO) phase noise-induced impairment, also known as equalization-enhanced phase noise, in coherent optical systems is discussed. The method is suitable for real-time implementation and requires hardware with a bandwidth much lower than the signal baud rate, even for a system utilizing conventional semiconductor laser as LO. We evaluate the required parameters like interpolation technique, electrical signal-to-noise ratio at digital coherence enhancement (DCE) front end, for long haul transmission links having quadrature phase shift keying and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation formats. We show that the method can be implemented using a low-speed DCE front end and a simple digital linear interpolator with small (<;1 dB) implementation penalty even in cases that would otherwise result in error floor.

Adaptive Boundaries Scheme for Cycle-Slip Mitigation in C-mQAM Coherent Systems

We propose a method for cycle-slip mitigation in circular multilevel quadrature amplitude modulation (C-mQAM) coherent optical systems, with constellation rotational asymmetry, based on an adaptive boundaries approach. The impact of cycle-slips in C-mQAM coming from Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm limits the phase noise tolerance. By introducing adaptive boundaries and a differential coding scheme, the ambiguity of asymmetrical rotation of constellation can be effectively removed. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated for a C-16QAM and C-64QAM for various laser linewidths. Results show a noticeable improvement in linewidth symbol duration product (Δν · TS) tolerance compared with the previous studies on C-mQAM and mQAM constellations. The Δν · TS tolerance reaches 4 × 10-4 and 1.1 × 10-4 for C-16QAM and C-64QAM, respectively, for 1 dB penalty at a symbol error rate of 10-3.

Laser Frequency Noise in Coherent Optical Systems: Spectral Regimes and Impairments

Coherent communication networks are based on the ability to use multiple dimensions of the lightwave together with electrical domain compensation of transmission impairments. Electrical-domain dispersion compensation (EDC) provides many advantages such as network flexibility and enhanced fiber nonlinearity tolerance, but makes the system more susceptible to laser frequency noise (FN), e.g. to the local oscillator FN in systems with post-reception EDC. Although this problem has been extensively studied, statistically, for links assuming lasers with white-FN, many questions remain unanswered. Particularly, the influence of a realistic non-white FN-spectrum due to e.g., the presence of 1/f-flicker and carrier induced noise remains elusive and a statistical analysis becomes insufficient. Here we provide an experimentally validated theory for coherent optical links with lasers having general non-white FN-spectrum and EDC. The fundamental reason of the increased susceptibility is shown to be FN-induced symbol displacement that causes timing jitter and/or inter/intra symbol interference. We establish that different regimes of the laser FN-spectrum cause a different set of impairments. The influence of the impairments due to some regimes can be reduced by optimizing the corresponding mitigation algorithms, while other regimes cause irretrievable impairments. Theoretical boundaries of these regimes and corresponding criteria applicable to system/laser design are provided.

Phase noise tolerant carrier recovery scheme for 28 Gbaud circular 16QAM

We propose a novel carrier phase recovery scheme for circular 16QAM coherent transmission systems. Experimental results show low penalties (<;1.4 dB) even for linewidths where square 16QAM exhibits irretrievable (above the FEC limit) error floor.

A path to use large linewidth LO in 28 Gbd 16-QAM metro links

We experimentally investigate the possibility to mitigate local oscillator induced Equalization Enhanced Phase Noise penalty. The results pave the way for the use of even 10 MHz linewidth local oscillator lasers in 28 Gbd 16-QAM metro links.

Low complexity timing recovery algorithm for PAM-8 in high speed direct detection short range links

We propose a low complexity timing algorithm for high order PAM. Experimental results demonstrate higher performance and lower complexity than conventional algorithms in a 32 Gbaud PAM-8 transmission over 4 km SMF links.

High-speed optical interconnects with integrated externally modulated laser

The cloud services together with the huge size datasets are driving demand for bandwidth in datacenters [1]. The 400 Gbps client-side links are demanding cost efficient solution: to reduce the number of lanes and increase the bandwidth for a single lane. The intensity modulation and direct-detection systems together with integrated semiconductor lasers and modulators appear as promising solution in four optical lanes at 100G since it reduces complexity, power consumption and costs [2]. However, it requires silicon and InP opto-electronic components with more than 70 GHz bandwidth [3]. In this talk, we report on a cost-efficient integrated externally modulated laser (EML) with high bandwidth for record high-speed intensity modulation and direct detection system demonstration with up to 100G OOK, PAM4/8 and duobinary signaling, as well as analog modulations e.g. DMT, paving the way for high speed multilevel modulation formats [4–6]. Related techniques including digital signal processing algorithms for timing recovery, adaptive/static equalization are also discussed in terms of practical implementation and complexity. In addition, techniques constructively using time domain super-Nyquist image induced aliasing for mitigating modulator driver nonlinearity for high speed DMT transmission will be presented [6], [7].