Regular perturbation on the group-velocity dispersion parameter for nonlinear fibre-optical communications.

Communication using the optical fibre channel can be challenging due to nonlinear effects that arise in the optical propagation. These effects represent physical processes that originate from light propagation in optical fibres. To obtain fundamental understandings of these processes, mathematical models are typically used.

Accuracy Assessment of Nondispersive Optical Perturbative Models through Capacity Analysis.

A number of simplified models, based on perturbation theory, have been proposed for the fiber-optical channel and have been extensively used in the literature. Although these models are mainly developed for the low-power regime, they are used at moderate or high powers as well. It remains unclear to what extent the capacity of these models is affected by the simplifying assumptions under which they are derived.

Multi-channel collision-free reception for optical interconnects.

A multi-channel reception scheme that allows each node to receive an arbitrary set of wavelengths simultaneously (i.e., collision-free) is proposed for optical interconnects.

Digital backpropagation accounting for polarization-mode dispersion.

Digital backpropagation (DBP) is a promising digital-domain technique to mitigate Kerr-induced nonlinear interference. While it successfully removes deterministic signal-signal interactions, the performance of ideal DBP is limited by stochastic effects, such as polarization-mode dispersion (PMD). In this paper, we consider an ideal full-field DBP implementation and modify it to additionally account for PMD; reversing the PMD effects in the backward propagation by passing the reverse propagated signal also through PMD sections, which concatenated equal the inverse of the PMD in the forward propagation.

On the limits of digital back-propagation in the presence of transceiver noise.

This paper investigates the impact of transceiver noise on the performance of digital back-propagation (DBP). A generalized expression to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) obtained using DBP in the presence of transceiver noise is described. This new expression correctly accounts for the nonlinear beating between the transceiver noise and the signal in the optical fiber transmission link.

Polarization Drift Channel Model for Coherent Fibre-Optic Systems.

A theoretical framework is introduced to model the dynamical changes of the state of polarization during transmission in coherent fibre-optic systems. The model generalizes the one-dimensional phase noise random walk to higher dimensions, accounting for random polarization drifts, emulating a random walk on the Poincaré sphere, which has been successfully verified using experimental data. The model is described in the Jones, Stokes and real four-dimensional formalisms, and the mapping between them is derived.

Implications of information theory in optical fibre communications.

Recent decades have witnessed steady improvements in our ability to harness the information-carrying capability of optical fibres. Will this process continue, or will progress eventually stall? Information theory predicts that all channels have a limited capacity depending on the available transmission resources, and thus it is inevitable that the pace of improvements will slow. However, information theory also provides insights into how transmission resources should, in principle, best be exploited, and thus may serve as a guide for where to look for better ways to squeeze more out of a precious resource.

Single parity check-coded 16QAM over spatial superchannels in multicore fiber transmission.

We experimentally investigate single-parity check (SPC) coded spatial superchannels based on polarization-multiplexed 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-16QAM) for multicore fiber transmission systems, using a 7-core fiber. We investigate SPC over 1, 2, 4, 5 or 7 cores in a back-to-back configuration and compare the sensitivity to uncoded PM-16QAM, showing that at symbol rates of 20 Gbaud and at a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10, the SPC superchannels exhibit sensitivity improvements of 2.7 dB, 2.

Improving soft FEC performance for higher-order modulations via optimized bit channel mappings.

Soft forward error correction with higher-order modulations is often implemented in practice via the pragmatic bit-interleaved coded modulation paradigm, where a single binary code is mapped to a nonbinary modulation. In this paper, we study the optimization of the mapping of the coded bits to the modulation bits for a polarization-multiplexed fiber-optical system without optical inline dispersion compensation. Our focus is on protograph-based low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes which allow for an efficient hardware implementation, suitable for high-speed optical communications.

On nonlinearly-induced noise in single-channel optical links with digital backpropagation.

In this paper, we investigate the performance limits of electronic chromatic dispersion compensation (EDC) and digital backpropagation (DBP) for a single-channel non-dispersion-managed fiber-optical link. A known analytical method to derive the performance of the system with EDC is extended to derive a first-order approximation for the performance of the system with DBP. In contrast to the cubic growth of the variance of the nonlinear noise-like interference, often called nonlinear noise, with input power for EDC, a quadratic growth is observed with DBP using this approximation.

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.

Multilevel pulse-position modulation for optical power-efficient communication.

A family of modulation formats is derived by combining pulse-position modulation (PPM) with multilevel dual-polarization signal constellations. With 16-PPM, gains of up to 5.4 dB are obtained over dual-polarization QPSK, at the cost of reduced spectral efficiency.

30 Gbps 4-PAM transmission over 200 m of MMF using an 850 nm VCSEL.

We present high speed real time, error free 4-PAM transmission for short range optical links based on a VCSEL operating at 850 nm, a multimode fibre and a simple intensity detector. Transmission speeds of 25 Gbps and 30 Gbps are demonstrated, and the maximum fibre reaches were 300 m and 200 m, respectively. The 4-PAM is also compared with OOK transmission at 25 Gbps, and we find that at this bit rate 4-PAM increases the error free transmission distance in the multimode fibre by 100 m, compared to OOK.

Experimental comparison of modulation formats in IM/DD links.

We present an experimental comparison of modulation formats for optical intensity modulated links with direct detection. Specifically, we compare OOK, QPSK on an electrical subcarrier and a new modulation format named OOPSK. The OOPSK modulation format is shown to have better sensitivity than the other modulation formats, in agreement with theoretical predictions.

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.

Power efficient subcarrier modulation for intensity modulated channels.

We compare formats for optical intensity modulation limited by thermal noise with the assumption of having ideal devices. At the same bitrate and bandwidth, a hitherto unknown format turns out to be more power efficient than known formats. This new modulation, which is a hybrid between on-off keying and phase-shift keying, belongs to the subcarrier modulation family.

Which is the most power-efficient modulation format in optical links?

By exploiting the electromagnetic wave's four-dimensional signal space, we find that for the additive white Gaussian noise channel, the modulation format with best sensitivity to be an 8-level format with 1.76 dB asymptotic gain over BPSK, for uncoded optical transmission with coherent detection. Low-complexity modulators are presented for the format, as well as an interpretation in terms of quantum-limited sensitivity.

Performance comparison of optical 8-ary differential phase-shift keying systems with different electrical decision schemes: Comment.

We summarize three electrical decision schemes that have been proposed for 8-level differential phase-shift keying, briefly discuss their performance and complexity, and comment that two of these schemes have been confused in an earlier comparison in Optics Express.

Fiber communications using convolutional coding and bandwidth-efficient modulation.

In this paper we evaluate numerically the advantage of combining convolutional coding and bandwidth-efficient modulation. We compare different multilevel modulation formats, line codes, and hard/soft decision decoding. Compared with DPSK modulation (with the same bandwidth and information transmission rate), an improvement of almost 5 dB is observed for bit error rates around 10-8.