Liang B. Du

Fiber nonlinearity compensation for OFDM super-channels using optical phase conjugation

We experimentally demonstrate that mid-link optical phase conjugation (OPC) effectively compensates fiber nonlinearity in coherent optical OFDM super-channels. The OPC was produced by pump × subcarrier degenerate four-wave-mixing in a 1-km highly nonlinear fiber. The nonlinear threshold for the 10 × 80-km 604.7-Gb/s 16-QAM test system was increased by 4.8 dB. The performance at the optimum power was only improved by 0.2 dB because the OPC module produces a 1.6 dB penalty for the back-to-back system. FWM theory shows that the noise processes of OPC modules utilizing χ3 nonlinearities could be reduced by increasing the pump power, which will improve back-to-back performance with the OPC module.

Experimental demonstrations of dual polarization CO-OFDM using mid-span spectral inversion for nonlinearity compensation

We experimentally demonstrate fiber nonlinearity compensation in dual polarization coherent optical OFDM (DP CO-OFDM) systems using mid-span spectral inversion (MSSI). We use third-order nonlinearity between a pump and the signal in a highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) for MSSI. Maximum launch powers at FEC threshold for two 10 × 80-km 16-QAM OFDM systems were increased by 6.4 dB at a 121-Gb/s data rate and 2.8 dB at 1.2 Tb/s. The experimental results are the first demonstration of using MSSI for nonlinearity compensation in any dual polarization coherent system. Simulations show that these increases could support a 22% increase in total transmission distance at 1.2-Tb/s system without increasing the number of inline amplifiers, by extending the fiber spans from 90 to 110 km. When spans of 80 km are used, simulations reveal that MSSI system performance shows less degradation with increasing transmission distance, and an overall transmission distance increase of more than 70% is expected using MSSI.

Statistical moments-based OSNR monitoring for coherent optical systems

We present a novel statistical moments-based method for optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring in polarization-multiplexed (pol-mux) coherent optical systems. This technique only requires the knowledge of the envelope of the equalized signal before phase correction, which can be achieved by using any two arbitrary statistical moments, and it is suitable for both constant and non-constant modulus modulation formats. The proposed estimation method is experimentally demonstrated for 10-Gbaud pol-mux coherent systems using QPSK and 16-QAM. Additionally, numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate 20-Gbaud systems using 16-QAM and 64-QAM. The results show that the OSNR can be estimated accurately over a wide range of values for QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM systems up to 1920-km long and with up to 50-ps all-order polarization mode dispersion. By setting a proper reference value for calibration, the proposed algorithm also shows good tolerance when the received signal is not well compensated.

Improving performance of optical phase conjugation by splitting the nonlinear element

We show that optical phase conjugation (OPC) based on third order nonlinear effects for mid-span spectral inversion (MSSI) can be improved by splitting the nonlinear element into two parts and adding an optical filter between them. This band-stop filter suppresses the cross-phase-modulation products that are generated around the pump, which, if not removed, will be shifted to fall around the output OPC signal band. Numerical simulations show that this method reduces the fundamental limitations introduced by OPC by 3 dB, which results in improvement of the maximum signal quality, Qmax, by 1 dB in a 10 × 80-km 4-QAM 224-Gb/s CO-OFDM system with MSSI.

Flexible all-optical frequency allocation of OFDM subcarriers

We investigate the underlying mechanism that allows OFDM subcarriers in an all-optical OFDM system to be assigned to any optical frequency using an optical filter, even if that frequency is not generated by the comb-line source feeding the filters. We confirm our analysis using simulations, and present experimental results from a 252-subcarrier system that uses a mode-locked laser (MLL) as the comb source and a wavelength selective switch. The experimental results show that there is no correlation between the programmed frequency offset between a subcarrier and nearest comb line, and the received signal quality. Thus, subcarriers could be inserted into unused portions of an optical transmission systems spectrum without restriction on their particular center frequencies. Any percentage of cyclic prefix can be added to the OFDM symbol simply by reprogramming the optical filter to give wider subcarrier frequency spacing than the comb line spacing, which is useful for tailoring the CP to the dispersion of various optical transmission paths, to maximize the spectral efficiency. Finally, the MLLs center frequency need not be locked to a system reference.

Mitigation of dispersion penalty for short-cyclic-prefix coherent optical OFDM systems

Experiments show that by pre-compensating for dispersion, using bands transmitted with timing offsets and a single-band receiver, the cyclic prefix can be reduced in optical OFDM systems without compromising their dispersion-compensation ability.

Optical performance monitoring for OFDM using low bandwidth coherent receivers

We propose using low bandwidth coherent receivers for distributed optical performance monitoring. We demonstrate optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring of both 20-Gb/s single-polarization and 40-Gb/s polarization-multiplexed coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) signals with a 0.8-GHz receiver using both data-aided (DA) and non-data-aided (NDA) approaches. The sampling rate of the performance monitor is much lower than the signal baud rate, so provides a cost-effective solution for distributed optical performance monitoring. The proposed method is demonstrated experimentally and through simulation. The results show that after calibration the OSNR monitoring error is less than 1 dB and the two approaches are not affected by fiber dispersion after 800-km transmission and 30-ps differential group delay (DGD).

PMD monitoring in 16-QAM coherent optical system using golay sequences

We propose a technique for polarization-mode-dispersion (PMD) estimation in 16-QAM coherent polarization-multiplexed single-carrier system using complementary Golay training sequences and channel response filter analysis. The technique is experimentally proved to be fast and highly accurate.

Single carrier QPSK and 16 QAM system demonstration using frequency domain equalization and training sequences

We experimentally demonstrate coherent polarization-multiplexed QPSK and 16QAM single-carrier system with frequency-domain-equalization over 800-km in-line transmission using binary training sequences. The sequences are designed to be practical and achieve accurate channel estimation in full-system demonstration.

Improved two-stage equalization for coherent Pol-Mux QPSK and 16-QAM systems

We report a two-stage blind frequency domain equalization method for long-haul coherent polarization-multiplexed (pol-mux) systems using quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM). In the first stage, blind CD parameter prediction is conducted prior to a CD equalizer. This supports flexible path switching in optical networks. In the second stage, a frequency-domain multi-modulus algorithm (MMA) equalizer is used to cope with the residual fiber impairments and perform polarization de-multiplexing. Compared with the conventional constant modulus algorithm (CMA), MMA shows advantages including better steady state performance and a faster convergence rate. Furthermore, all the estimation and equalization algorithms are implemented in the frequency domain which potentially provides the least complexity for the pol-mux optical coherent systems. The proposed algorithm is experimentally demonstrated with an 800-km 10 Gbaud coherent optical pol-mux system. For QPSK signal, the proposed method achieves error-free transmission and shows superior convergence speed against CMA, and for 16-QAM signals, the proposed MMA outperforms CMA with more than 1-dB improvement in Q-value.