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A split-carrier transmitter is proposed to improve loss budget for short distance 100 G-per-wavelength intra-datacentre links. By applying a low-complexity hardware modification to the transmitter, the proposed architecture reduces transmitter loss without sacrificing modulation quality. These benefits are demonstrated by implementing intensity modulated, direct-detection signals using a single-ended photodiode receiver. The architecture is evaluated using two formats: Nyquist-shaped 56 GBd PAM-4 and Nyquist-shaped double sideband 28 GBd 16-QAM. The results are compared against a conventional transmitter modulated with Nyquist-shaped 56 GBd PAM-4. Through simulation, the split-carrier transmitter is shown to achieve hard decision forward error correction ready performance after 2 km of transmission using a laser output power of just 0 dBm; a 5.2 dB improvement over the conventional transmitter.

It is predicted that demand in future optical access networks will reach multigigabit/s per user. However, the limited performance of the direct detection receiver technology currently used in the optical network units at the customers' premises restricts data rates per user. Therefore, the concept of coherent-enabled access networks has attracted attention in recent years, as this technology offers high receiver sensitivity, inherent frequency selectivity, and linear field detection enabling the full compensation of linear channel impairments. However, the complexity of conventional (dual-polarization digital) coherent receivers has so far prevented their introduction into access networks. Thus, to exploit the benefits of coherent technology in access networks, low complexity coherent receivers, suitable for implementation in ONUs, are needed. In this paper, the recently proposed low complexity coherent (i.e., polarization-independent Alamouti-coding heterodyne) receiver is, for the first time, compared in terms of its minimum receiver sensitivity with five previously reported receiver designs, including a detailed discussion on their advantages and limitations. It is shown that, of all the configurations considered, the Alamouti-coding based receiver approach allows the lowest number of photons per bit (PPB) transmitted (with a lower bound of 15.5 PPB in an ideal implementation of the system), while requiring the lowest optical receiver hardware complexity (in terms of the optical component count). It also exhibits comparable complexity to the currently deployed direct-detection receivers, which typically require over 1000 PPB. Finally, a comparison of experimentally achieved receiver sensitivities and transmission distances using these receivers is presented. The highest spectral efficiency and longest transmission distance at the highest bit rate (10 Gb/s) was reported using the Alamouti-coding receiver, which is also the only one, to date, to have been demonstrated in a full system bidirectional transmission.

The channel law for amplitude-modulated solitons transmitted through a nonlinear optical fiber with ideal distributed amplification and a receiver based on the nonlinear Fourier transform is a noncentral chi-distribution with 2n degrees of freedom, where n=2 and n=3 correspond to the single- and dual-polarisation cases, respectively. In this paper, we study the capacity lower bounds of this channel under an average power constraint in bits per channel use. We develop an asymptotic semi-analytic approximation for a capacity lower bound for arbitrary n and a Rayleigh input distribution. It is shown that this lower bound grows logarithmically with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), independently of the value of n. Numerical results for other continuous input distributions are also provided. A half-Gaussian input distribution is shown to give larger rates than a Rayleigh input distribution for n=1,2,3. At an SNR of 25 dB, the best lower bounds we developed are approximately 3.68 bit per channel use. The practically relevant case of amplitude shift-keying (ASK) constellations is also numerically analyzed. For the same SNR of 25 dB, a 16-ASK constellation yields a rate of approximately 3.45 bit per channel use.

In this Letter we analyze the benefit of digital compensation of fiber nonlinearity, where the digital signal processing is divided between the transmitter and receiver. The application of the Gaussian noise model indicates that, where there are two or more spans, it is always beneficial to split the nonlinearity compensation. The theory is verified via numerical simulations, investigating transmission of single channel 50 GBd polarization division multiplexed 256-ary quadrature amplitude modulation over 100 km standard single mode fiber spans, using lumped amplification. For this case, the additional increase in mutual information achieved over transmitter- or receiver-side nonlinearity compensation is approximately 1 bit for distances greater than 2000 km. Further, it is shown, theoretically, that the SNR gain for long distances and high bandwidth transmission is 1.5 dB versus transmitter- or receiver-based nonlinearity compensation.

Transceivers employing square PM-QAM with up to two FEC overheads are optimized based on the SNR distribution. For NSFNET two FEC overheads with PM-16QAM give an 82% throughput increase compared with PM-QPSK with 7% overhead.

We show the great potential of nonbinary LDPC convolutional codes (NB-LDPC-CC) with low-latency windowed decoding. It is experimentally demonstrated that NB-LDPC-CC can offer a performance improvement of up to 5 dB compared with binary coding.

Current research efforts are focussed on overcoming the apparent limits of communication in single mode optical fibre resulting from distortion due to fibre nonlinearity. It has been experimentally demonstrated that this Kerr nonlinearity limit is not a fundamental limit; thus it is pertinent to review where the fundamental limits of optical communications lie, and direct future research on this basis. This paper details recently presented results. The work herein briefly reviews the intrinsic limits of optical communication over standard single mode optical fibre (SMF), and shows that the empirical limits of silica fibre power handling and transceiver design both introduce a practical upper bound to the capacity of communication using SMF, on the order of 1 Pbit/s. Transmission rates exceeding 1 Pbit/s are shown to be possible, however, with currently available optical fibres, attempts to transmit beyond this rate by simply increasing optical power will lead to an asymptotically zero fractional increase in capacity., 4 pages, 2 figures

We discuss recent progress on the use of optical and digital phase conjugation techniques for nonlinearity compensation in optical fiber links. We compare the achievable performance gain of phase conjugated twin wave applied in two polarization states and time segments with mid-link optical phase conjugation and digital back propagation. For multicarrier transmission scheme such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, two recently proposed schemes, namely phase-conjugated pilots and phase-conjugated subcarrier coding are reviewed.

We discuss recent progress on the use of optical and digital phase conjugation techniques for nonlinearity compensation in optical fiber links. We compare the achievable performance gain of phase conjugated twin wave applied in two polarization states and time segments with mid-link optical phase conjugation and digital back propagation. For multicarrier transmission scheme such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, two recently proposed schemes, namely phase-conjugated pilots and phase-conjugated subcarrier coding are reviewed.

This paper presents a real-time, coherent optical OFDM transmitter based on a field programmable gate array implementation. The transmitter uses 16QAM mapping and runs at 28 GSa/s achieving a data rate of 85.4 Gb/s on a single polarization. A cyclic prefix of 25% of the symbol duration is added enabling dispersion-tolerant transmission over up to 400 km of SSMF. This is the first transmission experiment performed with a real-time OFDM transmitter running at data rates higher than 40 Gb/s. A key aspect of the paper is the introduction of a novel method for OFDM symbol synchronization without relying on training symbols. Unlike conventional preamble-based synchronization methods which perform cross-correlations at regular time intervals and let the system run freely in between, the proposed method performs synchronization in a continuous manner ensuring correct symbol alignment at all times.

We present an analytical investigation of a performance monitoring scheme capable of simultaneously monitoring Chromatic Dispersion, Polarization Mode Dispersion and Optical Signal to Noise Ratio at 40 Gbit/s on timescales that are appropriate to optical burst switched networks. This analysis supports previously published experimental results which showed that this technique is scalable to WDM network monitoring.

We analyse the design and optimisation of quantum logic circuits suitable for the experimental demonstration of a three-qubit quantum computation prototype based on optically-controlled, solid-state quantum logic gates. In these gates, the interaction between two qubits carried by the electron-spin of donors is mediated by the optical excitation of a control particle placed in their proximity. First, we use a geometrical approach for analysing the entangling characteristics of these quantum gates. Then, using a genetic programming algorithm, we develop circuits for the refined Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm investigating different strategies for obtaining short total computational times. We test two separate approaches based on using different sets of entangling gates with the shortest possible gate computation time which, however, does not introduce leakage of quantum information to the control particles. The first set exploits fast approximations of controlled-phase gates as entangling gates, while the other one arbitrary entangling gates with a shorter gate computation time compared to the first set. We have identified circuits with consistently shorter total computation times when using controlled-phase gates., Comment: 15 pages

The spectral dispersion of light is critical in applications ranging from spectroscopy to sensing and optical communication technologies. We demonstrate that ultra-high spectral dispersion can be achieved with a finite-size surface plasmon polaritonic (SPP) crystal. The 3D to 2D reduction in light diffraction dimensions due to interaction of light with collective electron modes in a metal is shown to increase the dispersion by some two orders of magnitude, due to a two-stage process: (i) conversion of the incident light to SPP Bloch waves on a nanostructured surface and (ii) Bloch waves traversing the SPP crystal boundary. This has potential for high-resolution spectrograph applications in photonics, optical communications and lab-on-a-chip, all within a planar device which is compact and easy to fabricate., 14 pages, 3 figures

Transmission of 10Gbit/s per channel WDM over standard fibre using dispersion compensating fibre gratings and dispersion compensation fibre is investigated. The performance of the two techniques in the presence of self- and cross-phase modulation and for RZ and NRZ signal formats is compared.

Use of a reduced laser diode length with a fibre Bragg reflector leads to decreased mode-hopping and a factor of 3 improvement in temperature stability of the lasing wavelength over Δ T=22°C. Single frequency output power of 1.7 mW in the fibre with 45 dB side mode suppression was obtained.

For the first time the modulation format dependence of nonlinear interference in long-haul optical fibre transmission is experimentally demonstrated for polarisation-division multiplexed 4, 16, 64 and 256-QAM.

The impact of the amplifier noise figure (NF) on the optical network throughput is quantified from an information viewpoint. For every dB of NF decrease, throughput gains between 4% and 7% are reported.

High-speed broadband services require optical fibres in access networks, in which multiple subscribers are connected to service providers, to satisfy the continuously growing bandwidth demand. The primitive signaling scheme used in access networks enables the use of low-cost equipment but diminishes the bandwidth available to end-users. Thus, current technology will be unable to support future broadband demands. Coherent communication systems offer significantly improved power- and bandwidth-efficiency, but require fundamental simplifications to become economically viable for access networks. Here, we demonstrate a promising simplified coherent receiver exhibiting a robust performance against polarisation fluctuations over an installed fibre network. It enables the realisation of high-order modulation formats and offers high sensitivities, achieving a four-fold increase in the supported number of subscribers and approximately doubling the transmission distance compared to the recently standardized access technology. The proposed solution indicates that digital coherent technology can be feasible and transform the access networks, enabling ubiquitous new services and applications with uncontended, multi-gigabits/user broadband connections.