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The dynamicity of today's optical networks is far from its potential. Optical components, such as fast-tunable lasers or semiconductor optical amplifiers, can react on a nanosecond time scale, while the reconfiguration time of optical networks is many orders of magnitude larger, normally above a hundreds of milliseconds timescale. In this work, we address this gap with real-time control plane strategies that enhance the responsiveness of optical networks, specifically in the context of time-critical applications where service determinism is of paramount importance. This context represents an additional challenge since the infrastructure necessary to provide time-wise guarantees increases the complexity of the system under control. We describe in detail the real-time control plane for deterministic and dynamic networks and assess its value through experimental evaluation for the first time to our knowledge of a complete real-time control plane within a multinetwork segment testbed. We prove submillisecond overall reconfiguration time for multinetwork segment environments spanning distances of the order of tens of kilometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate a 222 GBd on-off-keying transmitter in a short-reach intra-datacenter scenario with direct detection after 120 m of standard single mode fiber. The system operates at net-data rates of >200 Gb/s OOK for transmission distances of a few meters, and >177 Gb/s over 120 m, limited by chromatic dispersion in the standard single mode fiber. The high symbol rate transmitter is enabled by a high-bandwidth plasmonic-organic hybrid Mach–Zehnder modulator on the silicon photonic platform that is ribbon-bonded to an InP DHBT 2:1 digital multiplexing selector. Requiring no driving RF amplifiers, the selector directly drives the modulator with a differential output voltage of 622 mVpp measured across a 50 Ω resistor. The transmitter assembly occupies a footprint of less than 1.5 mm × 2.1 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's network infrastructure evolves into two seemingly opposite directions: cloudification centralizes functions that used to be distributed for economies of scale, at the expense of latency, while latency-constrained applications are surging. This calls for a new architecture capable of distributed computing: The Edge Cloud network. Future 5G applications will impose strict latency and dynamicity requirements on the Edge Cloud, in intra- and inter-data center networks. The Edge Cloud needs a network infrastructure able to deliver: low latency (∼microseconds), deterministic data delivery in time (∼nanoseconds jitter), and dynamic reconfiguration (∼milliseconds) between objects (antennas, robots) in data centers or across data centers, through a fronthaul network. In this paper, we propose, implement, and demonstrate a deterministic dynamic network based Edge Cloud network. On a real-time testbed, we achieve network slicing, low, deterministic latency of only tens of microseconds per-application (per-flow), when competing technologies cannot provide per-flow guarantee. We also show that the network can be dynamically reconfigured at the millisecond timescale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As optical transceivers evolve toward 200G per lane, the comparatively low bandwidth and sampling speed of the commercially available high-speed digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) increasingly become the dominating obstacle toward success. On the other hand, DACs and ADCs are essential to make use of digital signal processing for impairment compensation and error correction; altogether driving systems’ engineers to a hard design dilemma. With the purpose of alleviating this compromise, we propose a transceiver structure—encompassing both hardware and software—enabling the generation, transmission, and detection of strongly over-filtered data signals whose baudrate exceeds the sampling rates of (potentially) both the DAC and ADC. We call this approach sub-baudrate sampling, a technique which does not increase the processing complexity at the transmitter side and does not even require the information about the channel state for pre-distortion or pre-coding purposes. We experimentally assess the performance of sub-baudrate sampled signals in two blocks of experiments: first the proof of concept in back-to-back configuration, including up to 112-Gbaud on–off keying at 0.785 samples per symbol in ∼25-GHz aggregate bandwidth. Then the C-band transmission demonstration, showing up to 100-Gbaud quaternary pulse-amplitude modulation (0.92 samples per symbol) and 125-Gbaud on–off keying (0.736 samples per symbol) over 1 and 80-km of single-mode fiber, respectively, with more than 3-dB receiver sensitivity margin at the 7% overhead hard-decision bit error rate limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on an on–off keying intensity-modulation and direct-detection C-band optical transceiver capable of addressing all datacenter interconnect environments at well beyond 100 Gbaud. For this, the transmitter makes the use of two key InP technologies: a 2:1 double heterojunction bipolar transistor selector multiplexer and a monolithically integrated distributed-feedback laser traveling-wave electro-absorption modulator, both exceeding 100-GHz of 3-dB analog bandwidth. A preamplified 110-GHz PIN photodiode prior to a 100-GHz analog-to-digital converter complete the ultrahigh bandwidth transceiver module; the device under study. In the experimental work, which discriminates between intra- and inter-data center scenarios (dispersion unmanaged 120, 560, and 960 m; and dispersion-managed 10 and 80 km of standard single-mode fiber), we evaluate the bit-error rate evolution against the received optical power at 140, 180, and 204 Gbaud on–off keying for different equalization configurations (adaptive linear filter with and without the help of short-memory sequence estimation) and forward error correction schemes (hard-decision codes with 7% and 20% overhead); drawing conclusions from the observed system-level limitations of the respective environments at this ultrahigh baudrate, as well as from the operation margins and sensitivity metrics. From the demonstration, we highlight three results: successful operation with >6-dB sensitivity margin below the 7% error-correction at 140 Gbaud over the entire 100 m–80 km range with only linear feed-forward equalization. Then, the transmission of a 180-Gbaud on–off keying carrier over 80 km considering 20% error-correction overhead. Finally, a 10-km communication at 204 Gbaud on–off keying with up to 6 dB sensitivity margin, and regular 7% overhead error-correction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on an ultrahigh-speed PAM-based IM/DD optical subsystem featuring compact signal generation and tractable digital-processing complexity. The proposed transceiver is based on two main technologies: an InP DHBT selector power DAC for electrical signal generation, and a complexity-optimized receiver processing chain. We show how the complexity of the feed-forward equalizer can be considerably reduced by stacking a <3-symbol memory sequence estimator. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate successful signal recovery for 107-GBd PAM-4 in back-to-back configuration, and after 500 m and 1 km of transmission over standard single-mode fiber for 100- and 84-GBd PAM-4 configuration, respectively. A power-budget margin above 2 dB is attained in all cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We report a novel coherent optical OFDM transponder approach capable of recovering microsecond-scale data-burst while adapting to tight filtering constraints present in optical slot switched intradatacenter networks. Filtering effects in such large node-count environments are reviewed. The CO-OFDM performance is experimentally investigated while crossing a long cascade containing up to 100 nodes. The results are compared to the typical Nyquist pulse-shaped approach. CO-OFDM signaling shows 40% extended reach, 50 Gb/s higher gross average rate, and >4 GHz extra detuning tolerance than Nyquist pulse-shaped signals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We demonstrate for the first time an intensity-modulated direct-detection link using four states of polarization. The four data-independent tributaries are each assigned distinct states of polarization to enable the receiver to separate the signals. Polarization rotation due to propagation over optical fiber is tracked and compensated with simple digital signal processing in Stokes space. Transmission below the forward error correction limit is shown for maximum net bitrates of 100 Gb/s (4$\,\times$  27 GBd) and 120 Gb/s (4$\,\times$ 32 GBd) over 2-km standard single-mode fiber at a center wavelength of 1550 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, tools from machine learning community, such as Bayesian filtering and expectation maximization parameter estimation, are presented and employed for laser amplitude and phase noise characterization. We show that phase noise estimation based on Bayesian filtering outperforms conventional time-domain approach in the presence of moderate measurement noise. Additionally, carrier synchronization based on Bayesian filtering, in combination with expectation maximization, is demonstrated for the first time experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A time-reversal array in multimode fiber is proposed for lossless remotely controlled switching using passive optical splitters. The signal to be transmitted is digitally predistorted so that it is routed through the physical layer in order to arrive at only one receiver in an array. The system performance in the presence of an additive white Gaussian noise, modal group delay, and timing error is investigated numerically for single-mode fiber and 10-mode fiber. Focusing using a two-transmitter array and 44 km of single-mode fiber is demonstrated experimentally for 3-GBd QPSK signals with a bit error rate below the forward error correction limit. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We report on the first experimental demonstration of superposition coded modulation (SCM) for polarization-multiplexed coherent-detection optical fiber links. The proposed coded modulation scheme is combined with phase-shifted bit-to-symbol mapping (PSM) in order to achieve geometric and passive shaping of the signal's waveform. The output constellations in SCM-PSM exhibit nonbijective quasi-Gaussian statistical distributions that asymptotically reach the Shannon capacity limit, showing up to 0.7 dB sensitivity improvement for 256-ary SCM-PSM with respect to 256-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). The characteristic wave formation based on superposition of antipodal symbols and the lack of need for additional encoders for signal shaping, greatly reduces the transmitter and receiver processing complexity in comparison to conventional alternatives. Single-level coding strategy (SL-SCM) is employed in the framework of bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative decoding (BICM-ID) for forward error correction. The fiber transmission system is characterized in terms of signal-to-noise ratio for back-to-back case and correlated with simulated results for ideal transmission over additive white Gaussian noise channel. Thereafter, successful demodulation and decoding after dispersion-unmanaged transmission over 240-km standard single mode fiber of dual-polarization 6-Gbaud 16-, 32- and 64-ary SCM-PSM is experimentally demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, joint estimation of carrier frequency, phase, signal means and noise variance, in a maximum likelihood sense, is performed iteratively by employing expectation maximization. The parameter estimation is soft decision driven and allows joint carrier synchronization and data detection. The algorithm is tested in a mixed line rate optical transmission scenario employing dual polarization 448 Gb/s 16-QAM signal surrounded by eight on-off keying channels in a 50 GHz grid. It is shown that joint carrier synchronization and data detection are more robust towards optical transmitter impairments and nonlinear phase noise, compared to digital phase-locked loop (PLL) followed by hard decisions. Additionally, soft decision driven joint carrier synchronization and detection offers an improvement of 0.5 dB in terms of input power compared to hard decision digital PLL based carrier synchronization and demodulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We report on migrating multiple-lane link into an L-band VCSEL-based WDM system. Experimental validation achieves successful transmission over 10 km of SMF at 4x14Gbps. Inter-channel crosstalk penalty is observed to be less than 0.5 dB and a transmission penalty around 1 dB. The power budget margin ranges within 6 dB and 7 dB.