BLS polarization-induced performance degradation in WDM-PON systems based on wavelength-locked FP-LDs

We experimentally investigated the performance degradation due to broadband light source (BLS) polarization in wavelength-division multiplexing-passive optical network systems based on a wavelength-locked Fabry-Perot laser diode. The results showed that the BLS polarization difference between two polarization states should be less than 3 dB, and its injection power should be greater than −18 dBm for a received-power penalty of less than 1 dB.     

Splitting-on-demand optical power splitters using multimode interference (MMI) waveguide with programmed modulations

Reconfigurable multi-channel optical power splitter is proposed and its optical properties are calculated. The device can dynamically reconfigure the number of splitting channels by providing programmed refractive index modulations on a multimode interference (MMI) waveguide. A reconfigurable 3-channel optical power splitter is designed to work as 1 × 1, 1 × 2 or 1 × 3 optical power splitter depending on the state of the heat electrodes using thermo-optic modulation, and the input light can be distributed to three output channels with sequential orders. The device can work in the whole C-band (1530-1565 nm) with extinction ratio better than −29.0 dB, excess loss better than −0.45 dB, imbalance better than 0.08 dB and polarization dependent loss (PDL) better than 0.14 dB. The design conception is scalable to a multi-channel splitting-on-demand optical power splitter which can divide input light to 1, 2, …, N output channels equally by using the 3-channel reconfigurable optical power splitter as a building block.     

Tunable dual wavelength fiber laser incorporating AWG and optical channel selector by controlling the cavity loss

In this paper, we propose and demonstrated a dual wavelength fiber laser (DWFL) based on the use of an erbium doped fiber (EDF) gain medium as well as an 1 × 24 Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) together with two optical channel selectors (OCS) to provide channel spacing tunability. The output power of the two wavelengths is equalized by controlling the cavity loss in the DWFL using two Programmable Optical Attenuators (POAs). The widest spacing obtained from the DWFL is 18.13 nm while the narrowest spacing is 0.8 nm. The DWFL has good stability with only minor power fluctuations of less than 1.5 dB and a Side Mode Suppression Ratio (SMSR) of approximately 69.1 dB with peak fluctuations of less than 2.3 dB.     

Optical alignment tolerances in double-side irradiated self-written waveguide-induced fiber arrays packages

In this paper, we present our experimental study on the optical alignment tolerance between the couplings of single-mode fibers (SMFs) connected with a double-side irradiation-induced self-written waveguide (SWW). The study firstly focuses on the coupling of two SMFs and then on the two fiber arrays (FAs) for parallel optical communication. The SWW was formed in dye-dispersed epoxy materials by the photopolymerization technique. Rhodamine 6G dye was dispersed in epoxy, which is commonly used in the photonic packaging industry as a bonding adhesive. Using double-side irradiated SWW, we found the alignment tolerance for such optical interconnect to relax significantly. All the formed SWWs were evaluated in terms of optical loss. In our study, up to 4 µm misalignment tolerance was allowed for only 1 dB loss penalty. In addition, the optical interconnect formed by this technique was also able to tolerate up to ± 10 µm lateral shift with only 1 dB extra loss. The wavelength-dependent loss (from 1520 to 1610 nm) and polarization-dependent loss were less than 0.4 dB. The double-side irradiated SWW-induced couplings between two FAs also provided low optical loss. They were found to be less sensitive to temperature changes, and no significant distortion in the digital signal transmission test was observed. We believe that the findings are useful and applicable to other dye-dispersed epoxy material systems for relaxing the alignment tolerance of the optical interconnects in various photonic packaging situations.     

A novel frequency sextupling scheme for optical mm-wave generation utilizing an integrated dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator

A novel scheme is proposed for frequency sextupling mm-wave generation based on a laser and an integrated dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) without optical filter. Theoretical analysis is presented to suppress the undesired optical sidebands for the high quality generation of frequency sextupling mm-wave signal. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated by simulations. Utilizing the integrated MZM consisted of two sub-MZMs with extinction ratio of 30 dB, the optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) is as high as 29.9 dB and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) exceeds 24 dB without any optical or electrical filter. The impact of the nonideal RF driven voltage and phase difference of RF driven signal applied to two sub-MZMs of the integrated MZM on OSSR and RFSSR is discussed and analyzed. After transmission over fiber, the generated optical mm-wave signal demonstrates good performance. Furthermore, the performance of two cases for the proposed scheme is also compared.     

New trend for optical signal-to-noise ratio of disturbed Raman fiber amplifier

In a distributed Raman fiber amplifier (DRFA), Raman amplification allows a lower signal launch powers to transverse the span above the noise floor while still increasing the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). It improves the noise figure and reduces the nonlinear penalty of fiber systems. In this paper, we demonstrate a new trend of OSNR at different pump configurations: forward, backward and bidirectional pumping for DRFAs as a function of fiber length. We also present the variation of OSNR with both input pump power and input signal power. It is found that forward pumping provides the highest OSNR, reaching its maximum value of 37 dB. However, backward pumping provides the smallest OSNR that has its maximum of 22 dB and the bidirectional pumping provides the moderate OSNR between the others having its peak of 26 dB.     

Transmission performance of optical OFDM signals with low peak-to-average power ratio by a phase modulator

We have experimentally generated optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OOFDM) signals by a phase modulator (PM). The generated OOFDM signal can tolerant higher nonlinear effects in fiber than that generated by an intensity modulator because of its lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). It is shown that, by using a PM, the PAPR of the OOFDM signal has a 2-3 dB reduction and the input power in fiber can be improved over 3 dB.     

All-optical NRZ-OOK-to-RZ-OOK format conversions with tunable duty cycles using nonlinear polarization rotation of a semiconductor optical amplifier

We experimentally demonstrate an all-optical 10 Gb/s format conversion from non-return-to-zero (NRZ) on-off-keying (OOK) to return-to-zero (RZ)-OOK with tunable duty cycle in the whole C-band using nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) arising in an semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The experimental results show that, by tuning the polarizer at the SOA output, an RZ signal with tunable duty cycle from 33% to 66% could be obtained with an extinction ratio(ER) over 10 dB. In addition, we show that the NRZ-to-RZ conversion with duty cycle of 33-66% can be obtained with less than 1 dB power penalty at the bit error ratio (BER) of 10⁻⁹. The device can facilitate the cross-connection between optical transmission networks employing different modulation formats.     

A novel optical mm-wave generation scheme based on three parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators

We propose a novel optical mm-wave generation scheme based on three parallel Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) for the first time. First, the scheme is investigated theoretically, which suggests that it can be used for sextupling, 12-tupling, and 18-tupling mm-wave generation. Then simulation results are given, 60 GHz mm-wave is generated from 5 GHz, or 10 GHz RF oscillator based on frequency 12-tupling or sextupling, and 90 GHz mm-wave is generated from 5 GHz RF oscillator based on frequency 18-tupling. The optical sideband suppression ratio (OSSR) and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) are analyzed by simulation, in which several non-ideal factors are taken into consideration. Results indicate that all the three mm-wave generation methods are practical and very good performance can be obtained when the extinction ratio of the MZM is 30 dB, even if the extinction ratio of the MZM is 20 dB, the performance is still good, especially for the sextupling mm-wave generation method, whose performance is excellent and insensitive to the extinction ratio of MZM, the non-ideal RF driving voltage and the non-ideal DC bias. At last, we set up a RoF system by simulation to verify the transmission performance of the scheme. The BER performance and eye diagrams are given.     

Incorporate, switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with Bragg gratings written in a polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber

A stable, incorporate and switchable dual-wavelength fiber laser with two fiber Bragg gratings written in a photosensitive and polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber directly, that is, without splices in the laser cavity, is proposed and demonstrated. Simultaneous dual-wavelength oscillation is achieved at room temperature with a wavelength spacing of 0.343 nm. The power fluctuation and wavelength shift of single-wavelength oscillations are measured to be less than 0.24 dB and 0.013 nm over 2 h. The wavelength switchability between single- and dual-wavelength oscillations is realized by altering the voltage upon the electrostrictive ceramic actuator.     

Reconfigurable all-optical logic gate using four-wave mixing (FWM) in HNLF for NRZ-PolSK signal

We demonstrate a reconfigurable all-optical logic gate for NRZ-PolSK signal based on FWM in a highly nonlinear fiber at 10 Gb/s. Half subtracter, XOR, AB?, āB or XNOR, AND, and NOR logic gates can be implemented simultaneously. The input power for the HNLF is optimized to be as low as about 15.2 dBm and the high Q factors above 8 dB for eye diagrams are achieved. Experimental results show Q factors of AB?, āB, AND, and NOR were higher than those of XOR, and XNOR. Error-free operation is achieved experimentally for 10 Gb/s 2⁷-1 pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) data. Power penalties for the logic gate are less than 3 dB. Simulation analysis about the wavelength characteristic for all logic gates is given and it predicts that the reconfigurable logic gate can realize error-free operation when the wavelength separation is less than 5 nm.     

Multi parameter optimization of Raman Fiber Amplifier using genetic algorithm for S band dense wavelength division multiplexed system

A simple genetic algorithm is implemented to perform multi parameter optimization of Raman Fiber Amplifier for 100 channel S band dense wavelength division multiplexed system at 25 GHz interval. A cost effective system using single Raman pump is investigated aiming at maximum average gain. The single counter propagating pump is optimized to frequency of 211.528 THz and 652.93 mW power level with optimum Raman fiber length of 44.064 Km. There is evidence to show that the optimum solution presents a small gain variation (less than 3 dB) over an effective bandwidth covering 197–199.475 THz. The optimized configuration enabled an adequate system performance in terms of acceptable Q-factor (19.52 dB) and BER (1.46 × 10⁻²¹).     

Multistage gain-flattened hybrid optical amplifier at reduced wavelength spacing

In this paper, two stage hybrid optical amplifier (HOA) composed of a single erbium doped fiber amplifier and Raman amplifier is proposed for dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) system and investigate the impact of reduced channel spacing. The performance has been evaluated in the term of gain, gain flatness and noise figure. Also, using gain equalization technique, hybrid optical amplifier that has a gain flatness of 3 dB, and a noise figure of less than 7.4 dB is observed.     

A new coding scheme of QC-LDPC codes for optical transmission systems

Based on Galois Field (GF(q)) multiplicative group, a new coding scheme for Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check (QC-LDPC) codes is proposed, and the new coding scheme has some advantages such as the simpler construction, the easier implementation encoding, the lower complexity of the encoding and decoding, the more flexible adjustment of the code length as well as the code rate and so forth. Under the condition of considering the characteristics of optical transmission systems, an irregular QC-LDPC (3843,3603) code to be suitable for optical transmission systems is constructed by applying the proposed new coding scheme. The simulation result shows that the net coding gain (NCG) of the irregular QC-LDPC (3843,3603) code is respectively improved 2.14 dB, 1.19 dB, 0.24 dB and 0.14 dB more than those of the classic RS (255,239) code in ITU-T G.975, the LDPC (32640,30592) code in ITU-T G.975.1, the regular SCG-LDPC (3969,3720) code constructed by the Systematically Constructed Gallager (SCG) coding scheme and the regular QC-LDPC (4221,3956) code at the bit error rate (BER) of 10-8. Furthermore, all the five codes have the same code rate of 93.7%. Therefore, the irregular QC-LDPC (3843,3603) code constructed by the proposed new coding scheme has the more excellent error-correction performance and can be better suitable for optical transmission systems.     

Variable optical attenuator based on a vertical comb drive actuated MEMS micromirror

This letter presents the design, simulation, fabrication, and successful demonstration of a variable optical attenuator (VOA) based on a micromachined micromirror combined with an optical fiber collimator. The micromirror has a size of 500 μm in diameter and a rotational resonance of 4.94 kHz. The micromirror was actuated by vertical comb drive which was fabricated by bulk micromachining process on a silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer. The VOA operates at a low driving voltage of 4.4 V corresponding to the rotation angle of 0.3°. The turn-on and turn-off response time of the VOA are 1.6 ms and 2.74 ms, respectively. Finally, the optical attenuation was measured and an optical attenuation as large as 40 dB was obtained.     

Using Fabry-Perot laser diode and reflective semiconductor optical amplifier for long reach WDM-PON system

In this investigation, we propose and investigate the simple self-injection locked Fabry-Perot laser diodes (FP-LDs) in optical line terminal (OLT); and wavelength-tunable optical network unit (ONU) using reflective optical semiconductor amplifier (RSOA) and FP-LD laser for downstream and upstream traffic in long reach (LR) wavelength division multiplexed-passive optical network (WDM-PON) respectively. The output performance of the proposed two laser sources in terms of power and side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) has been discussed. Here, for the downstream traffic, the proposed optical transmitter can be directly modulated at 2.5 Gb/s on-off keying (OOK) format with nearly 0.4 dB power penalty at bit error rate (BER) of 10⁻⁹ through 75 km single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission. Moreover, the proposed upstream transmitter can be directly modulated at 1.25 and 2.5 Gb/s with nearly 0.5 and 1.1 dB power penalty, respectively, at the BER of 10⁻⁹.     

Experimental investigation of the impact of optical injection on vital parameters of a gain-switched pulse source

An analysis of optical injection on a gain-switched distributed feedback (DFB) laser and its impact on pulse parameters that influence the performance of the pulse source in high-speed optical communication systems is presented in this paper. A range of 10 GHz in detuning and 5 dB in injected power has been experimentally identified to attain pulses, from an optically injected gain-switched DFB laser, with durations below 10 ps and pedestal suppression higher than 35 dB. These pulse features are associated with a side mode suppression ratio of about 30 dB and a timing jitter of less than 1 ps. This demonstrates the feasibility of using optical injection in conjunction with appropriate pulse compression schemes for developing an optimized and cost-efficient pulse source, based on a gain-switched DFB laser, for high-speed photonic systems.     

An optical mm-wave generation scheme by frequency octupling using a nested MMI

A novel method of a filterless optical millimeter-wave (MMW) signal generation with frequency octupling via a nested multimode interference (MMI) coupler is proposed for Radio-over-fiber systems. By setting the DC bias voltage applied to the central arms of MMI-b and MMI-c accurately, the optical carrier can be completely suppressed. The OSSR can be as high as about 58 dB without optical filter and the radio frequency spurious suppression ratio (RFSSR) exceeds 32 dB, which is the best result as we know. Simulation results suggest that when the generated optical mm-wave signal is transmitted along the standard single-mode fiber, the eye diagram is still opened after being transmitted over a 50 km fiber.     

Impact of 2OD and 3OD on SRS- and XPM-induced crosstalk in SCM-WDM optical transmission link

In this paper, the impact of second-order dispersion (2OD), third-order dispersion (3OD) and modulation frequency over stimulated Raman scattering (SRS)- and cross-phase modulation (XPM)-induced crosstalk in sub-carrier-multiplexed (SCM) wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) transmission link has been analyzed. It has been observed that there is significant effect of 2OD, 3OD and modulation frequency on the SRS- and XPM-induced crosstalk in a SCM-WDM transmission link. Here the results for SRS- and XPM-induced crosstalk have been reported with independent and combined higher-order dispersion. It has been observed that XPM-induced crosstalk lies between [−52.8 to −45.3] and [−94.7 to −78.6] dB in the presence of 2OD and 3OD respectively for modulation frequencies varied from 500 MHz to 2.0 GHz, while it is in the range of [−94.4 to −84] and [−128.5 to −117] dB when both SRS and XPM are taken into consideration.     

Novel optical controllable terahertz wave switch

We study theoretically and demonstrate experimentally light controllable terahertz wave switch. When the modulated optical excitation source is used to irradiate a high resistivity silicon wafer, a novel controllable terahertz wave switch is achieved. The results show that the ON-OFF response time is less than 150 ms and the attenuation of the novel terahertz wave switch is more than 20 dB at frequency of 0.315 THz.