Dual-polarization multi-band optical OFDM transmission and transceiver limitations for up to 500 Gb/s uncompensated long-haul links.

A number of critical issues for dual-polarization single- and multi-band optical orthogonal-frequency division multiplexing (DP-SB/MB-OFDM) signals are analyzed in dispersion compensation fiber (DCF)-free long-haul links. For the first time, different DP crosstalk removal techniques are compared, the maximum transmission-reach is investigated, and the impact of subcarrier number and high-level modulation formats are explored thoroughly. It is shown, for a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10(-3), 2000 km of quaternary phase-shift keying (QPSK) DP-MB-OFDM transmission is feasible. At high launched optical powers (LOP), maximum-likelihood decoding can extend the LOP of 40 Gb/s QPSK DP-SB-OFDM at 2000 km by 1.5 dB compared to zero-forcing. For a 100 Gb/s DP-MB-OFDM system, a high number of subcarriers contribute to improved BER but at the cost of digital signal processing computational complexity, whilst by adapting the cyclic prefix length the BER can be improved for a low number of subcarriers. In addition, when 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) is employed the digital-to-analogue/analogue-to-digital converter (DAC/ADC) bandwidth is relaxed with a degraded BER; while the 'circular' 8QAM is slightly superior to its 'rectangular' form. Finally, the transmission of wavelength-division multiplexing DP-MB-OFDM and single-carrier DP-QPSK is experimentally compared for up to 500 Gb/s showing great potential and similar performance at 1000 km DCF-free G.652 line.

Orthogonal coding methods for increasing the number of multiplexed channels in coherent beam combining.

We introduce orthogonally coded modulations for active coherent beam combining (CBC), and show how using Walsh codes enables the increase of the number of combined channels. Analytical, numerical, and experimental results are presented and compared to the standard multifrequency dithering technique, demonstrating that at least 5 times more fibers can be combined using the same modulation frequency. The modulation format excluded, no particular changes in the system need to be introduced and the benefits of active coherent beam combing, such as atmospheric turbulence compensation capability, are kept unchanged. Finally, we point out that this approach can be applied in partially CBC.

Dual-polarization multi-band OFDM versus single-carrier DP-QPSK for 100 Gb/s long-haul WDM transmission over legacy infrastructure.

The transmission performance of coherent dual-polarization multi-band OFDM (DP-MB-OFDM) and QPSK (DP-QPSK) are experimentally compared for 100 Gb/s long-haul transport over legacy infrastructure combining G.652 fiber and 10 Gb/s WDM system. It is shown that DP-MB-OFDM and DP-QPSK have nearly the same performance at 100 Gb/s after transmission over a 10 × 100-km fiber line. Furthermore, the origin of performance degradations and limitations of the DP-MB-OFDM is explored numerically, as well as the impact of transmission distance and sub-band spacing.

Importance of residual stresses in the Brillouin gain spectrum of single mode optical fibers.

Residual stresses inside optical fibers can impact significantly on Brillouin spectrum properties. We have analyzed the importance of internal stresses on the Brillouin Gain Spectrum (BGS) for a conventional G.652 fiber and compared modeling results to measurements. Then the residual internal stresses have been investigated for a set of trench-assisted fibers: fibers are coming from a single preform with different draw tensions. Numerical modeling based on measured internal stresses profiles are compared with corresponding BGS experimental results. Clearly, Brillouin spectrum is shifted linearly versus draw tension with a coefficient of -20MHz/100g and its linewidth increases.

Coherent beam combination of narrow-linewidth 1.5 µm fiber amplifiers in a long-pulse regime.

We report what we believe to be the first experimental demonstration of coherent beam combining of two fiber amplifiers in a 100 ns pulse regime using a signal leak between the pulses. Pulses of ∼100 W stimulated-Brillouin-scattering limited peak power are combined with 95% efficiency, a residual phase error of λ/27, and no significant beam quality degradation.

Disorder-induced coherent scattering in slow-light photonic crystal waveguides.

Light transmission measurements and frequency-delay reflectometry maps for GaAs photonic crystal membranes are presented and analyzed, showing the transition from propagation with a well-defined group velocity to a regime completely dominated by disorder-induced coherent scattering. Employing a self-consistent optical scattering theory, with only statistical functions to describe the structural disorder, we obtain excellent agreement with the experiments using no fitting parameters. Our experiments and theory together provide clear physical insight into naturally occurring light localization and multiple coherent-scattering phenomena in slow-light waveguides.

Characteristics of the Brillouin spectra in Erbium-Ytterbium fibers.

This paper reports the main characteristics of the Stokes spectra for typical pumped and unpumped Erbium-Ytterbium doped fibers. Doped fibers show shorter Brillouin shifts and their spectra are up to 1.6 times broader than undoped fibers. Those spectra are composed of several peaks originating from several longitudinal acoustic modes. The effective Brillouin gain of the secondary modes can be as large as 20% of the main peak gain. They can merge into a more complex structure for the largest cores. Simulations allow to relate these characteristics to the influence of codoping and index profile inhomogeneity. An additional broadening of the Stokes spectrum in pumped fibers is reported and attributed to thermal effects.

Performance comparison of 40 Gb/s ULH transmissions using CSRZ-ASK or CSRZ-DPSK modulation formats on UltraWave fiber (TM) fiber.

In this work we present extensive comparisons between numerical modelling and experimental measurements of the transmission performance of either CSRZ-ASK or CSRZ-DPSK modulation formats for 40-Gb/s WDM ULH systems on UltraWave(TM) fiber spans with all-Raman amplification. We numerically optimised the amplification and the signal format parameters for both CSRZ-DPSK and CSRZ-ASK formats. Numerical and experimental results show that, in a properly optimized transmission link, the DPSK format permits to double the transmission distance (for a given BER level) with respect to the ASK format, while keeping a substantial OSNR margin (on ASK modulation) after the propagation in the fiber line. Our comparison between numerical and experimental results permits to identify what is the most suitable BER estimator in assessing the transmission performance when using the DPSK format.

Electrostriction-induced acoustic effect in ultralong-distance soliton transmission systems.

The electrostriction-induced acoustic effect introduces a time-dependent index evolution for the following optical pulses and results in an additional temporal shift of solitons. The acoustic effect is incorporated into the nonlinear Schrödinger equation as a perturbative term. We investigate the evolution of timing jitter, taking into account both the Gordon-Haus and the acoustic effect contributions for a 10-Gbit/s sliding-frequency in-line-filter soliton system.