Martin Sjödin

Comparison of polarization-switched QPSK and polarization-multiplexed QPSK at 30 Gbit/s

We present the first experimental results for polarization-switched QPSK (PS-QPSK) and make a comparison with polarization-multiplexed QPSK. Our measurements confirm the predicted sensitivity advantage of PS-QPSK. We have also studied the single channel performance after transmission over 300 km and support the results with numerical simulations. It is shown that the two modulation formats have similar nonlinear tolerance and that optical dispersion compensation outperforms compensation with digital signal processing in the single channel case. Finally, we propose a novel transmitter for PS-QPSK based on an IQ modulator and two amplitude modulators driven in a push-pull configuration.

Modified constant modulus algorithm for polarization-switched QPSK

By using a generalized cost function, a modified constant modulus algorithm (CMA) that allows polarization demultiplexing and equalization of polarization-switched QPSK is found. An implementation that allows easy switching between the conventional and the modified CMA is described. Using numerical simulations, the suggested algorithm is shown to have similar performance for polarization-switched QPSK as CMA has for polarization-multiplexed QPSK.

40-Gbaud 16-QAM transmitter using tandem IQ modulators with binary driving electronic signals

We propose a novel 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitter based on two cascaded IQ modulators driven by four separate binary electrical signals. The proposed 16-QAM transmitter features scalable configuration and stable performance with simple bias-control. Generation of 16-QAM signals at 40 Gbaud is experimentally demonstrated for the first time and visualized with a high speed constellation analyzer. The proposed modulator is also compared to two other schemes. We investigate the modulator bandwidth requirements and tolerance to accumulated chromatic dispersion through numerical simulations, and the minimum theoretical insertion attenuation is calculated analytically.

OSNR Requirements for Self-Homodyne Coherent Systems

The optical signal-to-noise ratio requirements for a self-homodyne (SH) coherent system are investigated theoretically and experimentally and compared to intradyne (ID) detection. The beneficial effect of bandpass filtering of the copropagating local oscillator is demonstrated and it is shown that the performance limit for SH and ID systems becomes equal as the filter bandwidth is made small.

Comparison of 128-SP-QAM with PM-16-QAM.

In this paper we investigate an interesting modulation format for fiber optic communications, set-partitioning 128 polarization-multiplexed 16-QAM (128-SP-QAM), which consists of the symbols with even parity from the symbol alphabet of polarization-multiplexed 16-QAM (PM-16-QAM). We compare 128-SP-QAM and PM-16-QAM using numerical simulations in long-haul transmission scenarios at bit rates of 112 Gbit/s and 224 Gbit/s, and at the same symbol rates (14 and 28 Gbaud). The transmission link is made up of standard single-mode fiber with 60, 80 or 100 km amplifier spacing and both single channel and WDM transmission (25- and 50 GHz-spaced) is investigated. The results show that 128-SP-QAM achieves more than 40% increase in transmission reach compared to PM-16-QAM at the same data rate for all cases studied for a bit error rate of 10⁻³. In addition, we find that in single channel transmission there is, as expected, an advantage in terms of transmission distance when using a data rate of 112 Gbit/s as compared to 224 Gbit/s. However, when comparing the two different WDM systems with the same aggregate data rates, the reach is similar due to the smaller impact of nonlinear crosstalk between the WDM channels in the systems with 50 GHz spacing. We also discuss decoding and phase estimation of 128-SP-QAM and implement differential coding, which avoids error bursts due to cycle slips in the phase estimation. Simulations including laser phase noise show that the phase noise tolerance is similar for the two formats, with 0.5 dB OSNR penalty compared to the case with zero phase noise for a laser linewidth to symbol rate ratio of 10⁻⁴.

All-optical phase regeneration of 40Gbit/s DPSK signals in a black-box phase sensitive amplifier

We present a black-box four wave mixing based bit-rate-flexible phase sensitive amplifier and use it in the first demonstration of 40 Gbit/s DPSK phase regeneration.

Building up low-complexity spectrally-efficient Terabit superchannels by receiver-side duobinary shaping

Recently, an increasing interest has been put on spectrally-efficient multi-carrier superchannels for beyond 100G. Apart from orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and Nyquist wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), another low-complexity WDM approach based on transmitter-side pre-filtering and receiver-side duobinary shaping is proposed to build up multi-carrier superchannels. This approach is referred to as receiver-side duobinary-shaped WDM (RS-DBS-WDM). Generation and transmission of a 1.232-Tbit/s 11-carrier superchannel is experimentally demonstrated. The superchannel signal can be well fit inside the passband of multiple 300-GHz reconfigurable optical add and drop multiplexers (ROADMs). In the superchannel scenario, the proposed RS-DBS-WDM is qualitatively compared with OFDM and Nyquist-WDM in terms of implementation complexity. In sum, the proposed RS-DBS-WDM approach features high transceiver analog-bandwidth efficiency, high spectral-efficiency, the absence of specific spectral manipulation, compatibility with conventional WDM technologies and coherent detection algorithms, and comparable implementation penalty.

Comparison of 128-SP-QAM and PM-16QAM in long-haul WDM transmission

We investigate 128-level set-partitioning quadrature amplitude modulation (128-SP-QAM) experimentally and compare the performance to polarization-multiplexed 16QAM both at the same bit rate and at the same symbol rate. Using a recirculating loop we study both single channel and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission and demonstrate a reach of up to 2680 km at a bit-error rate of 10(-3) for 128-SP-QAM. We confirm that 128-SP-QAM has an increased sensitivity compared to PM-16QAM and show that the maximum transmission distance can be increased by more than 50 % at the same bit rate for both single channel and WDM transmission. We also investigate the performance at the same symbol rate as a possible fall back solution in a degrading link.

Transmission of PM-QPSK and PS-QPSK with different fiber span lengths

We perform experimental and numerical investigations of the transmission reach of polarization-switched QPSK (PS-QPSK) and polarization-multiplexed QPSK (PM-QPSK) for three different fiber span lengths: 83, 111 and 136 km. In the experimental comparison we investigate the performance of PS-QPSK at 20 Gbaud and PM-QPSK at the same bit rate (60 Gbit/s) and at the same symbol rate, both the single channel case and a WDM system with 9 channels on a 50 GHz grid. We show that PS-QPSK gives significant benefits in transmission reach for all span lengths. Compared to PM-QPSK, use of PS-QPSK increases the reach with more than 41% for the same symbol rate and 21% for the same bit rate. In the numerical simulations we use the same data rates as in the experiment. The simulation results agree well with the experimental findings, but the transmission reach is longer due to the absence of various non-ideal effects and higher back-to-back sensitivity. Apart from using data coded in the absolute phase in the simulations, we also investigate differentially coded PS-QPSK for the first time and compare with PM-QPSK with differential coding. The power efficiency advantage of PS-QPSK then increases with approximately 0.3 dB at a bit error rate of 10⁻³, resulting in a further relative transmission reach improvement over PM-QPSK. Both the experimental and the numerical results indicate that PS-QPSK has slightly higher tolerance to inter-channel nonlinear crosstalk than PM-QPSK.

Interleaved polarization division multiplexing in self-homodyne coherent WDM systems

We demonstrate increased spectral efficiency for self-homodyne coherent WDM systems by using a novel interleaved polarization division multiplexing scheme.