Pilot-tone-based self-homodyne detection using optical nonlinear wave mixing.

An all-optical pilot-tone-based self-homodyne detection scheme using nonlinear wave mixing is experimentally demonstrated. Two scenarios are investigated using (1) multiple wavelength-division-multiplexed channels with sufficient power of the pilot tones and (2) a single channel with a low-power pilot tone. The eye diagram and bit error rate of the system are studied by tuning various parameters such as pump power, relative phase, and pilot-to-signal ratio.

Spatial light structuring using a combination of multiple orthogonal orbital angular momentum beams with complex coefficients.

Analogous to time signals that can be composed of multiple frequency functions, we use uniquely structured orthogonal spatial modes to create different beam shapes. We tailor the spatial structure by judiciously choosing a weighted combination of multiple modal states within an orthogonal orbital angular momentum (OAM) basis set, creating desired beam intensity "shapes." The weights of the OAM beams to be combined forms a Fourier pair with the spatial intensity distribution in the azimuthal direction of the resultant beam.

Dependence of a microresonator Kerr frequency comb on the pump linewidth.

We experimentally investigate the dependence of Kerr comb generation, comb linewidth, and coherent system performance on the pump linewidth in a microresonator. We find that the generation of the primary comb can have a larger tolerance to the pump linewidth compared with that of the low-phase-noise comb. In addition, the linewidths of the generated combs are almost linearly dependent on the pump linewidth in the primary and low-phase-noise states.

Dual-pump generation of high-coherence primary Kerr combs with multiple sub-lines.

We experimentally generate high-coherence primary Kerr combs with multiple sub-lines by using dual pumps and demonstrate the application of a primary comb state in multichannel communications. We find that more than 10 primary comb lines can be generated within the spectrum of modulation instability gain in our microring resonator. The generation is also verified by numerical simulations and the measured linewidth confirms the high coherence of the generated primary comb lines.

Simultaneous all-optical phase noise mitigation and automatically locked homodyne reception of an incoming QPSK data signal.

Simultaneous phase noise mitigation and automatic phase/frequency-locked homodyne reception is demonstrated for a 20-32 Gbaud QPSK signal. A phase quantization function is realized to squeeze the phase noise of the signal by optical wave mixing of the signal, its third-order harmonic, and their corresponding delayed variant conjugates, converting the noisy input into a noise-mitigated signal. In a simultaneous nonlinear process, the noise-mitigated signal is automatically phase- and frequency-locked with a "local" pump laser, avoiding the need for feedback or phase/frequency tracking for homodyne detection.

Experimental demonstration of phase-sensitive regeneration of a binary phase-shift keying channel without a phase-locked loop using Brillouin amplification.

All-optical phase regeneration of a binary phase-shift keying signal is demonstrated at 10-30 Gb/s without a phase-locked loop in a phase-sensitive amplification-based system using Brillouin amplification of the idler. The system achieves phase noise reduction of up to 56% and up to 11 dB OSNR gain at 10 bit error rate for the 10 Gb/s signal. The system's sensitivity to different parameters and stability is also evaluated.

Demonstration of Tunable Steering and Multiplexing of Two 28 GHz Data Carrying Orbital Angular Momentum Beams Using Antenna Array.

In line-of-sight communication systems, accurate alignment between the transmitter and receiver is important to guarantee sufficient signal power at the receiver. Such alignment is even more important for orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing systems since misalignment between the transmitter and receiver may cause crosstalk among channels. In this paper, we demonstrate the simultaneous generation and tunable steering of two OAM beams utilising a custom-designed circular antenna array at 28 GHz.

Demonstration of optical multicasting using Kerr frequency comb lines.

We experimentally demonstrate optical multicasting using Kerr frequency combs generated from a SiN microresonator. We obtain Kerr combs in two states with different noise properties by varying the pump wavelength in the resonator and investigate the effect of Kerr combs on multicasting. Seven-fold multicasting of 20 Gbaud quadrature phase-shift-keyed signals and four-fold multicasting of 16-quadrature amplitude modulation signals have been achieved when low-phase-noise combs are input into a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide.

Reconfigurable optical inter-channel interference mitigation for spectrally overlapped QPSK signals using nonlinear wave mixing in cascaded PPLN waveguides.

A reconfigurable all-optical inter-channel interference (ICI) mitigation method is proposed for an overlapped channel system that avoids the need for multi-channel detection and channel spacing estimation. The system exhibits a 0.5-dB implementation penalty compared to a single-channel baseline system.

Experimental demonstration of tunable homodyne detection of WDM and dual-polarization PSK channels by automatically locking the channels to a local pump laser using nonlinear mixing.

This Letter proposes a method for tunable automatically locked homodyne detection of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) dual-polarization (DP) phase-shift keyed (PSK) channels using nonlinear mixing. Two stages of periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguides and an LCoS filter enable automatic phase locking of the channels to a local laser.

Effect of a breather soliton in Kerr frequency combs on optical communication systems.

In this study, we numerically investigate the effect of Kerr-comb-generated breather soliton pulses on optical communication systems. The breather soliton pulse amplitude and spectrum envelope oscillate periodically in time. Simulations show that the spectrum of each comb line in the breather soliton state has multiple sub-teeth due to the periodic oscillation of the comb spectrum.

All optical signal level swapping and multilevel amplitude noise mitigation based on different regions of optical parametric amplification.

All optical signal level swapping and multilevel amplitude noise mitigation are experimentally demonstrated using the three gain regions of optical parametric amplification, i.e., linear, saturation, and inversion.

Optical channel de-aggregation of quadrature-phase-shift-keying and eight-phase-shift-keying data using mapping onto constellation axes.

An eight-phase-shift-keying signal is experimentally de-aggregated onto two four-pulse amplitude modulation signals using nonlinear processes in optical elements. Quadrature-phase-shift-keying signals are similarly de-multiplexed into two binary phase shift keying signals by mapping the data points onto the constellation axes. De-multiplexing performance is evaluated as a function of the optical signal-to-noise ratio of the incoming signals.

Phase noise mitigation of QPSK signal utilizing phase-locked multiplexing of signal harmonics and amplitude saturation.

We demonstrate an all-optical phase noise mitigation scheme based on the generation, delay, and coherent summation of higher order signal harmonics. The signal, its third-order harmonic, and their corresponding delayed variant conjugates create a staircase phase-transfer function that quantizes the phase of quadrature-phase-shift-keying (QPSK) signal to mitigate phase noise. The signal and the harmonics are automatically phase-locked multiplexed, avoiding the need for phase-based feedback loop and injection locking to maintain coherency.

Tunable radio frequency photonics filter using a comb-based optical tapped delay line with an optical nonlinear multiplexer.

A radio frequency (RF) photonic filter is experimentally demonstrated using an optical tapped delay line (TDL) based on an optical frequency comb and a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide as multiplexer. The approach is used to implement RF filters with variable bandwidth, shape, and center-frequency.

Experimental demonstration of robustness and accuracy of a DLI-based OSNR monitor under changes in the transmitter and link for different modulation formats and baud rates.

We experimentally studied the performance of a delay-line interferometer-based optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitor that is pre-calibrated in optimal conditions for 25-Gbaud pol-muxed quadrature-amplitude-modulation (QAM) signals, when unpredicted changes outside the monitor occurred either in the transmitter or the link.

Optical Nyquist channel generation using a comb-based tunable optical tapped-delay-line.

We demonstrate optical Nyquist channel generation based on a comb-based optical tapped-delay-line. The frequency lines of an optical frequency comb are used as the taps of the optical tapped-delay-line to perform a finite-impulse response (FIR) filter function. A single optical nonlinear element is utilized to multiplex the taps and form the Nyquist signal.

Reconfigurable 2D optical tapped-delay-line to perform correlation on images.

We demonstrate a reconfigurable 2D optical tapped-delay-line (OTDL) to correlate quadrature-phase-shift-keying (QPSK) 20 Gbaud data. By implementing two independent tapped-delay-lines which performs correlation over rows (inner sum), along with a coherent multiplexing of the correlated rows which performs correlation over columns (outer sum), a 2D correlator is achieved with average error vector magnitude (EVM) of ∼7.8%.

Demonstration of tunable optical generation of higher-order modulation formats using nonlinearities and coherent frequency comb.

We demonstrate a tunable, optical generation scheme of higher-order modulation formats including pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Using this method, 100.4 Gbit/s 16-QAM and 120 Gbit/s 64-QAM were generated from 50.

Demonstration of all-optical phase noise suppression scheme using optical nonlinearity and conversion/dispersion delay.

We propose and demonstrate an all-optical phase noise reduction scheme that uses optical nonlinear mixing and tunable optical delays to suppress the low-speed phase noise induced by laser linewidth. By utilizing the phase conjugate copy of the original signal and two narrow-linewidth optical pumps, the phase noise induced by laser linewidth can be reduced by a factor of ∼5 for a laser with 500-MHz phase noise bandwidth. The error-vector-magnitude can be improved from ∼30% to ∼14% for the same laser linewidth for 40-Gbit/s quadrature phase shift keying signal.

Demonstration of in-service wavelength division multiplexing optical-signal-to-noise ratio performance monitoring and operating guidelines for coherent data channels with different modulation formats and various baud rates.

We demonstrated a delay-line interferometer (DLI)-based, optical-signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring scheme of 100  Gbit/s polarization multiplexed quadrature-phase-shift-keying (PM-QPSK) four-channel WDM at 50-GHz International Telecommunication Union (ITU) grid with <0.5  dB error for signals with up to 26 dB of actual OSNR. We also demonstrated data format transparency and baud rate tunability of the OSNR monitor by measuring the OSNR for a 200  Gbit/s PM-16-QAM (25-Gbaud) signal and a 200  Gbit/s PM-QPSK (50-Gbaud) signal.

Tunable optical correlator using an optical frequency comb and a nonlinear multiplexer.

We experimentally demonstrate a tunable optical correlator to search for multiple patterns among QPSK symbols. We utilize an optical frequency comb to generate the coherent signals and multiplex them coherently in a single PPLN waveguide. Multiple patterns with different lengths are successfully searched within QPSK symbols in a 40-Gb/s signal.

Simultaneous and independent processing of multiple input WDM data signals using a tunable optical tapped delay line.

We demonstrate a tunable optical tapped delay line that can simultaneously and independently operate on multiple wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) data signals. The system utilizes the wavelength-dependent speed of light, together with nonlinear wavelength conversion stages. A phase-preserving scheme enables coherent addition of the weighted taps.

Demonstration of reconfigurable optical generation of higher-order modulation formats up to 64 QAM using optical nonlinearity.

We demonstrate a reconfigurable optical transmitter of higher-order modulation formats including pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM) signals and quadrature-amplitude-modulation (QAM) signals. We generated six different modulation formats by multiplexing 10 Gbit/s on-off-keying (OOK) signals (10 Gbaud binary phase-shift keying, 4-PAM, 8-PAM quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), 16-QAM and 16-star-QAM with error-vector magnitudes (EVMs) of 8.1%, 7.

Simultaneous subchannel data updating for multiple channels of 16-quadrature amplitude modulation signals using a single periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide.

Subchannel data updating of high-order modulation format signals using cascaded sum- and difference-frequency generation in a single periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide is demonstrated. One quadrature phase-shift-keying subchannel of a 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal at 40 Gbit/s is successfully updated, with an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) penalty of ~2 dB for return-to-zero and ~4 dB for non-return-to-zero at a bit-error rate (BER) of 2×10(-3). Simultaneous processing of four wavelength-multiplexed 16-QAM signals with an average OSNR penalty of 4.