Single-step digital backpropagation for subcarrier-multiplexing transmissions.

We propose and demonstrate a single-step digital back propagation (DBP) algorithm for metro and regional transmissions with high order modulation formats. Based on subcarrier-multiplexing (SCM)-DBP, two modifications are made to improve performance and reduce complexity for the targeted link scenarios. First, an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter is adopted in self-subcarrier nonlinear compensation. Second, the second stage chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation is incorporated into an existing adaptive filter. Through experiment, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme, denoted as M-SCM-DBP, for single channel 34.94-GBd SCM PDM-32QAM transmission. With 86.3% complexity reduction compared with the low-pass filter assisted DBP, the proposed M-SCM-DBP achieves 0.6-dB Q2 improvement for SCM-PDM-32QAM transmission over 960-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF). The reach extension of 36% to 1220-km is achieved with only 30.5 complex multiplications per sample, in comparison with the linear compensation scheme. Since the adaptive filter is used to simultaneously compensate 50% CD and other linear impairments, we also investigate the required number of filter taps and its polarization tracking ability.

Low complexity split digital backpropagation for digital subcarrier-multiplexing optical transmissions.

A split digital backpropagation (DBP) scheme for digital subcarrier-multiplexing (SCM) transmissions, denoted as SSDBP, is proposed and studied in both experiments and simulations. The implementation of the SSDBP is split at the transmitter and the receiver, leveraging existing chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation blocks to reduce complexity. We experimentally demonstrate that the SSDBP, with a complexity reduction up to 50% compared to the original receiver based SCM-DBP, can achieve a nonlinear compensation Q2 gain of 0.7-dB and 0.9-dB for 1920-km and 2880-km 34.94-GBd single channel PDM-16QAM transmissions, respectively. The maximum reach can be extended by 31.6% using 2-step SSDBP with only 27.5 complex multiplications per sample. Meanwhile, using 3-step SSDBP, the reach extension can be increased to 40.8%. The benefit of implementing part of SSDBP at the transmitter is experimentally validated with 0.1-dB Q2 improvement at 4-dBm launch power. We also numerically investigate the impact of the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) resolution and fiber parameter uncertainties on the nonlinear compensation performance of the SSDBP.

First experimental demonstration of faster-than-Nyquist PDM-16QAM transmission over standard single mode fiber.

We demonstrate faster-than-Nyquist (FTN) transmission with a novel mitigation scheme of intercarrier interference. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first experimental demonstration of FTN PDM-16QAM transmission over standard single mode fiber (SSMF). Due to the use of maximum likelihood sequence detection and multi-input multi-output processing for severely overlapped Nyquist-PDM-16QAM carriers, 5.4-dB optical signal-to-noise ratio improvement is experimentally observed under the scenario of 2×16-GBd PDM-16QAM back-to-back transmission with a carrier spacing of 15 GHz. A net spectral efficiency up to 7.68 b/s/Hz is achieved by transmission of a 15-GHz spaced dual-carrier superchannel over 960-km SSMF, with hard decision forward error correction taken into account. Furthermore, FTN superchannel transmission with carrier spacings of 14 and 15 GHz are successfully realized over 960- and 1920-km SSMFs, respectively.