4×10 Gbit/s bidirectional transmission over 2 km of conventional graded-index OM1 multimode fiber using mode group division multiplexing.

We demonstrate 4 × 10 Gbit/s error-free bidirectional transmission over 2 km of conventional OM1 graded-index multimode fiber using OOK modulation and direct detection. We also perform field transmission to show reach and capacity boosts on legacy multimode infrastructure. Such transmission is enabled by selective mode group division multiplexing, based on multi-plane light conversion over 4 mode groups of the multimode fiber.

Efficient and mode selective spatial mode multiplexer based on multi-plane light conversion.

We designed and built a new type of spatial mode multiplexer, based on Multi-Plane Light Conversion (MPLC), with very low intrinsic loss and high mode selectivity. In this first demonstration we show that a typical 3-mode multiplexer achieves a mode selectivity better than -23 dB and a total insertion efficiency of -4.1 dB (optical coating improvements could increase efficiency to -2.