Qunbi Zhuge

Spectral Efficiency-Adaptive Optical Transmission Using Time Domain Hybrid QAM for Agile Optical Networks

We report the transmission of time domain hybrid QAM (TDHQ) signals for agile optical networks. A continuous tradeoff between spectral efficiency and achievable distance by mixing modulation formats including QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM is demonstrated in two scenarios: 1) 28 Gbaud non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signal for fixed 50 GHz grid systems; 2) superchannel transmission at date rates of up to 1.15 Tb/s and spectral efficiencies of up to 7.68 b/s/Hz. The TDHQ signal is generated using high-speed digital-to-analog converters (DACs) at the transmitter, and low-complexity digital signal processing (DSP) is proposed for processing the TDHQ signals at the receiver. Moreover, the nonlinearity tolerance of hybrid QAM signals with different configurations is investigated.

Theoretical and experimental investigation of direct detection optical OFDM transmission using beat interference cancellation receiver

We theoretically and experimentally evaluate a beat interference cancellation receiver (BICR) for direct detection optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (DD-OFDM) systems that improves the spectral efficiency (SE) by reducing the guard band between the optical carrier and the optical OFDM signal while mitigating the impact of signal-signal mixing interference (SSMI). Experimental results show that the bit-error-rate (BER) is improved by about three orders of magnitude compared to the conventional receiver after 320 km single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission for 10 Gb/s data with a 4-QAM modulation using reduced guard band single-sideband OFDM (RSSB-OFDM) signal with 1.67 bits/s/Hz SE.

Digital subcarrier multiplexing for fiber nonlinearity mitigation in coherent optical communication systems

In this work we experimentally investigate the improved intra-channel fiber nonlinearity tolerance of digital subcarrier multiplexed (SCM) signals in a single-channel coherent optical transmission system. The digital signal processing (DSP) for the generation and reception of the SCM signals is described. We show experimentally that the SCM signal with a nearly-optimum number of subcarriers can extend the maximum reach by 23% in a 24 GBaud DP-QPSK transmission with a BER threshold of 3.8 × 10(-3) and by 8% in a 24 GBaud DP-16-QAM transmission with a BER threshold of 2 × 10(-2). Moreover, we show by simulations that the improved performance of SCM signals is observed over a wide range of baud rates, further indicating the merits of SCM signals in baud-rate flexible agile transmissions and future high-speed optical transport systems.

Advanced DSP Techniques Enabling High Spectral Efficiency and Flexible Transmissions: Toward elastic optical networks

In this article, we describe advances in digital signal processing (DSP) techniques that enable Tb/s transmission, and software-defined flexible transponders that support adaptive modulation formats and elastic optical networks (EONs).

Pilot-aided carrier phase recovery for M-QAM using superscalar parallelization based PLL.

In this paper, we present a carrier phase recovery (CPR) algorithm using a modified superscalar parallelization based phase locked loop (M-SSP-PLL) combined with a maximum-likelihood (ML) phase estimation. Compared to the original SSP-PLL, M-SSP-PLL + ML reduces the required buffer size using a novel superscalar structure. In addition, by removing the differential coding/decoding and employing ML phase recovery it also improves the performance. In simulation, we show that the laser linewidth tolerance of M-SSP-PLL + ML is comparable to blind phase search (BPS) algorithm, which is known to be one of the best CPR algorithms in terms of performance for arbitrary QAM formats. In 28 Gbaud QPSK (112 Gb/s) and 16-QAM (224 Gb/s), and 7 Gbaud 64-QAM (84 Gb/s) experiments, it is also demonstrated that M-SSP-PLL + ML can increase the transmission distance by at least 12% compared to BPS for each of them. Finally, the computational complexity is discussed and a significant reduction is shown for our algorithm with respect to BPS.

Zero-guard-interval coherent optical OFDM with overlapped frequency-domain CD and PMD equalization.

This paper presents a new channel estimation/equalization algorithm for coherent OFDM (CO-OFDM) digital receivers, which enables the elimination of the cyclic prefix (CP) for OFDM transmission. We term this new system as the zero-guard-interval (ZGI)-CO-OFDM. ZGI-CO-OFDM employs an overlapped frequency-domain equalizer (OFDE) to compensate both chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) before the OFDM demodulation. Despite the zero CP overhead, ZGI-CO-OFDM demonstrates a superior PMD tolerance than the previous reduced-GI (RGI)-CO-OFDM, which is verified under several different PMD conditions. Additionally, ZGI-CO-OFDM can improve the channel estimation accuracy under high PMD conditions by using a larger intra-symbol frequency-averaging (ISFA) length as compared to RGI-CO-OFDM. ZGI-CO-OFDM also enables the use of ever smaller fast Fourier transform (FFT) sizes (i.e. <128), while maintaining the zero CP overhead. Finally, we provide an analytical comparison of the computation complexity between the conventional, RGI- and ZGI- CO-OFDM. We show that ZGI-CO-OFDM requires reasonably small additional computation effort (~13.6%) compared to RGI-CO-OFDM for 112-Gb/s transmission over a 1600-km dispersion-uncompensated optical link.

Dispersion-enhanced phase noise effects on reduced-guard-interval CO-OFDM transmission.

Unlike conventional CO-OFDM systems, we show in this paper that reduced-guard-interval (RGI) CO-OFDM systems experience subcarrier-dependent phase noise (PN) from the local oscillator laser. This phenomenon manifests in RGI-CO-COFM systems because the chromatic dispersion (CD) induced walk-off becomes comparable to the OFDM symbol length. We term this phenomenon the dispersion enhanced PN (DEPN). In this work an analytical study of the impact of DEPN on CO-OFDM transmission is conducted. We develop a system-level analytical model and calculate the variance of the dispersion-induced subcarrier-dependent phase rotation term (PRT) using two different distribution patterns of pilot subcarriers (PS). Moreover, we present a bit error rate (BER) estimator to quantify the system performance degradation due to PRT. Numerical simulations are then performed to verify the analytical model. Finally, we propose a grouped maximum-likelihood (GML) phase estimation approach to mitigate the DEPN impairment, and demonstrate a 0.7-1.7 dB SNR improvement at BER=10⁻³ for typical 100 Gb/s RGI CO-OFDM systems.

Low Overhead Intra-Symbol Carrier Phase Recovery for Reduced-Guard-Interval CO-OFDM

We propose intra-symbol carrier phase recovery (IS-CPR) for reduced-guard-interval (RGI) CO-OFDM in order to compensate for the intra-symbol phase shift (ISPS) between subcarriers that is caused by the dispersion-enhanced phase noise (DEPN). We begin by proposing a pre-emphasized pilot subcarrier (PEPS) approach to reduce the pilot subcarrier overhead for the following IS-CPR algorithms. Then, we show a statistical analysis of the DEPN-induced ISPS between subcarriers within one symbol, which is related to the accumulated chromatic dispersion (CD). Next, three algorithms are proposed for IS-CPR including maximum-likelihood (ML) phase estimation, digital phase-locked loop (DPLL), and feedforward carrier recovery (FFCR) employing either the Mth power scheme in case of QPSK modulation or the QPSK partitioning scheme for the 16-QAM case. The performance and complexity of these algorithms are compared. Through simulations, we show that in comparison to conventional common phase error (CPE) compensation, IS-CPR significantly improves the linewidth tolerance at 1 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) penalty for a bit error rate (BER) = 10-3 from 300 kHz to 2 MHz for 112 Gb/s systems (28 Gbaud QPSK) at 3200 km transmission distance, and from 70 kHz to 550 kHz for 448 Gb/s (56 Gbaud 16-QAM) systems at 1600 km transmission distance.

Analytical and experimental performance evaluation of an integrated Si-photonic balanced coherent receiver in a colorless scenario

We study analytically and experimentally the performance limits of a Si-photonic (SiP) balanced coherent receiver (CRx) co-packaged with transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) in a colorless WDM scheme. Firstly, the CRx architecture is depicted and characterization results are presented. Secondly, an analytical expression for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the CRx output is rigorously developed and various noise sources in the context of colorless reception are outlined. Thirdly, we study experimentally the system-level CRx performance in colorless reception of 16 × 112 Gbps PDM-QPSK WDM channels. Using a 15.5 dBm local oscillator (LO) power, error free transmissions over 4800 and 4160 km at received powers of -3 and -21 dBm per channel, respectively, were achieved in a fully colorless and preamplifierless reception. Next, a set of measurements on one of the center WDM channels is performed where the LO power, received signal power, distance, and number of channels presented to the CRx are swept to evaluate the performance limits of colorless reception. Results reveal that the LO beating with optical noise incoming with the signal is a dominant noise source regardless of received signal power. In the high received signal power regime (~0 dBm/channel), the self-beat noise from out-of-band (OOB) channels is an additional major noise source especially for small LO-to-signal power ratio, short reach and large number of OOB channels. For example, at a received signal power of 0 dBm/channel after 1600 km transmission, the SNR difference between the fully filtered and colorless scenarios, where 1 and 16 channels are passed to the CRx respectively, grows from 0.5 to 3.3 dB as the LO power changes from 12 to 0 dBm. For low received power (~-12 dBm/channel), the effect of OOB channels becomes minor while the receiver shot and thermal noises become more significant. We identify the common mode rejection ratio (CMRR) and sensitivity as the two important CRx specifications that impact the performance at high and low received signal power regimes, respectively. Finally, an excellent match between experimental and analytical SNRs is proven after the derived SNR model is fitted to the experimental data in a least-squares sense. The model is then used to predict that the CRx can operate colorlessly for a fully populated WDM spectrum with 80 channels provided that the LO-to-signal power ratio is properly set.

Ultra-compact coherent receiver based on hybrid integration on silicon

A coherent receiver based on silicon photonics is presented. Its performance is confirmed by single-channel and WDM transmission tests with PM-QPSK modulation at 28 Gbaud up to 4800 km. The packaged core is very compact with dimensions of 6 mm × 8 mm.