On duty cycle selection of RZ optical pulse to optimize the performance of dispersion compensated 10 Gbps single channel optical communication system using dispersion compensating fibers

We present results for duty cycle selection of optical RZ pulse to optimize the performance in 10 Gbps single channel dispersion compensated optical communication system. The system has link length of 240 km with two spans. Each of the spans consists of 120 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) of 16 ps/nm/km, whose chromatic dispersion is compensated using pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensation schemes by 24 km dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) of −80 ps/nm/km. The performance of the three compensation schemes is compared by taking 8, 10, 12 and 14 dBm Er-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) power levels in the link with a duty cycle range (0.1-0.9) of RZ optical pulse. The graphical results obtained show a relationship among the duty cycle, EDFA power and dispersion compensation scheme which predicts the best performing duty cycle case. To optimize performance of the system, we recommend in general, duty cycle less than 0.3 and EDFA power below 8 dB irrespective of compensation scheme. However, with post compensation duty cycle less than 0.7 and EDFA power below 12 dBm give optimum performance. The results conclude that for the high value of duty cycle, post dispersion compensation scheme should be used.     

Optimizing amplifier spacing to improve performance in RZ-rectangular pulse based 10 Gb/s single channel dispersion managed optical communication system

In this paper, we optimize the inter-amplifier spacing in combination with duty cycle of RZ data format and EDFAs power so that link length of system can be maximized. The results for EDFA amplifier placement in 10 Gbps single channel dispersion managed optical communication system have been presented. By increasing the length of standard single mode fiber of dispersion 16 ps/nm/km in proportion to the increase in length of compensating fiber of dispersion −80 ps/nm/km, the pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensation schemes of the system have been compared. Further, schemes are observed at 8, 10 and 12 dBm values of EDFA power in the link with different duty cycle values of RZ optical pulse in the range of 0.2-0.8 with step size of 0.2 in relation to amplifier spacing to get lower value of bit error rate and timing jitter. The graphical results obtained show strong relationship among duty cycle of RZ optical pulse, EDFA power and, dispersion compensation scheme.     

Investigations on order and width of RZ super Gaussian pulse in pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensated 10 Gb/s optical communication system using standard and dispersion compensating fibers

We show the effect of varied order and width of super Gaussian pulse at 10 Gb/s in dispersion compensated optical communication system. The optical communication system consists of standard single-mode fiber of 16 ps/nm/km of a certain length, whose dispersion is compensated using pre-, post- and symmetrical-dispersion compensation schemes with proportionate length dispersion compensating fiber of −80 ps/nm/km. Performance of these three compensation schemes is compared at 14 dBm values of Er-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) power at 1st, 2nd and 3rd order RZ super Gaussian optical pulse. The pulse width, full width at half maximum (FWHM) is also varied from 5 to 30 ps to highlight the optimum performance. The graphical results obtained show a relationship among the attributes pulse width, order of RZ super Gaussian optical pulse and dispersion compensation scheme implemented. It shows that to decrease BER and timing jitter in the system, smaller width and 3rd order super Gaussian pulse should be used. It is recommended that to decrease dependency of BER and timing jitter in the communication system on the pulse width i.e. FWHM, the symmetrical compensation scheme should be implemented.     

Simulative investigation on the impact of laser-spectral width in single-tone radio-over-fiber transmission system using optical single side-band technique

In this paper, we analyzed the impact of laser-spectral width incorporating dual-electrode Mach–Zehnder modulator (DEMZM) in single-tone radio-over-fiber (RoF) transmission system by simulation setup. It is shown that an improvement in the measurement of received radio frequency (RF) power is achieved by reducing the laser line width from 100 MHz to 100 kHz, which further improves the BER rate and optical link by transmitting the information with low power. The results are calculated for 20 and 50 km optical single sideband (OSSB)–RoF transmission system by varying the chirp from 0 to −3 as it requires less bandwidth than optical dual sideband (ODSB)–RoF system and is tolerable for power degradation due to a chromatic fiber-dispersion, through a standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) carried by a continuous wave (CW) laser at 1550 nm of laser-spectral width varying from 100 MHz to 100 kHz with CW power of 10 mW that modulates a single RF channel of 20 GHz. Further, deployment of such lasers with OSSB scheme helps the telecom industry to reduce the designing cost of RoF communication systems.     

Simulative investigation of nonlinear distortion in single- and two-tone RoF systems using direct- and external-modulation techniques

In this paper, we investigated a Radio-over-Fiber (RoF) system consisting of two different system set-ups using direct- and external-laser modulation techniques to study frequency response. Further, second- and third-harmonic generations of single- and two-tone RoF systems have been studied. In this work, we also measured the electric Rf power of two receiving channels and BER at received optical power at different modulating Rf frequencies up to 20 GHz using EDFA or SOA amplifiers. The results have been compared for the electric Rf power of receiving channels obtained using a sin² Mach Zehnder modulator and a linear modulator, and an improvement in the received Rf power with linear modulator in comparison with the sin² modulator is observed.     

Single-sideband modulated radio-over-fiber system based on long period fiber grating

We present a prototype for optical single-sideband (SSB) modulated radio-over-fiber (RoF) system by employing a long period fiber grating (LPFG). A LPFG with 13.78 nm base width of transmission spectrum and 0?23.2 dB of transmission depth was designed by using commercial software. Then it is used in RoF SSB modulation scheme. In the scheme, a Mach?Zehnder modulator modulates the light wave with millimeter-wave driving signals to realize optical double-sideband (ODSB) modulation, the generated ODSB modulation signals pass through a LPFG. Due to the negative slope in transmission spectrum, the lower sideband experiences higher attenuation than the upper sideband. Thus the conversion from ODSB to optical single sideband with carrier (OSSB + C) can be easily achieved by using only one LPFG. Also, the carrier to sideband ratio (CSR) can be reduced by using a LPFG, results show the CSR can be decreased from 12.49 dB to 1.1 dB.     

Eleven-wavelength switchable fiber ring laser with a dispersion compensation fiber and a delayed interferometer

We demonstrate a fiber ring laser with a dispersion compensation fiber (DCF) and a delayed interferometer (DI) with temperature control, which is able to switch eleven wavelengths one by one. In ring cavity, DCF supplies different effective cavity lengths for different wavelengths, DI generates a wavelength comb corresponding to the ITU grid, a flat-gain erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) provides uniform gain for each lasting wavelength, and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) not only acts as active modulator, but also alleviates homogeneous broadening effect of EDFA. Stable pulse trains with a pulsewidth about 40 ps at 10 GHz have been obtained by injecting external optical control signals into the laser. Wavelength switching process among eleven wavelengths is achieved by merely tuning an intracavity optical delay line.     

Impact of interferometer delay time on the performance of ODSB-SC RoF system with wavelength interleaving

In this paper, we investigate the impact of interferometer delay time in a 5 Gb/s optical double sideband-suppressed carrier (ODSB-SC) RoF system transmitting two wavelength interleaved radio frequency (RF) signals at 10 and 15 GHz over an optical fiber. Here, an optical Mach–Zehnder modulator is used for both optical carrier suppression and signal modulation. At the receiver, delay interferometer is used for the separation of RF frequency signals. We analyze the performance of the RoF system by varying the value of delay time of interferometer from 0.02 to 0.14 ns. The result shows that the RoF system performance is optimum for the time delay of 0.1 ns. Further, the optical spectrums, RF spectrums and eye diagrams of two interleaved RF signals have been compared.     

Analysis of an optical mm-wave generation scheme with frequency octupling using two cascaded Mach-Zehnder modulators

We propose a novel method to generate optical mm-wave signals with frequency octupling using two cascaded Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs). First, the scheme is investigated both theoretically and by simulation, and results show that an 80 GHz mm-wave is generated by a 10 GHz RF oscillator. Then, an analytical expression is developed to describe the performance of the scheme. The influences caused by non-ideal factors are discussed in detail, and undesired sidebands suppression ratios are plotted and analyzed. At last a RoF system using the mm-wave generation scheme is demonstrated and its BER curves indicate that the performance of the system is still good even if the parameters deviate from the ideal values to a certain degree.     

High-Q, tunable, photonic microwave single passband filter based on stimulated Brillouin scattering and fiber Bragg grating filtering

We experimentally demonstrate a single passband, photonic microwave bandpass filter scheme based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in optical fiber. A single side band (SSB)-modulated probe and a single frequency, tunable pump beam that have been produced by the combination of conventional Mach-Zehnder modulators and fiber Bragg grating filters, are used for the generation of SBS phenomenon in a 1-km long highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted optical fiber. Using the proposed scheme a single microwave passband with a ∼26 MHz bandwidth is readily achieved over a radio frequency tuning range from 1.3 to 9.3 GHz. The maximum Q-factor is measured to be ∼360.     

Influence of the modulation index of Mach-Zehnder modulator on RoF link with ASK millimeter-wave signal

In this paper, the influence of the modulation index of LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator on the radio over fiber (RoF) link based on single sideband (SSB) optical millimeter (mm)-wave with ASK signal is theoretically and numerically investigated. Our investigation shows that there exists an optimal modulation index to generate the SSB optical mm-wave with a maximal RF photocurrent. Although the fiber dispersion distorts the code form and degrades the performance of the RF signal demodulated from the SSB optical mm-wave after fiber transmission, it does not cause the closure of the eye diagram. However, the influence of the fiber dispersion becomes more obvious as the modulation index increases. For the duplex RoF link with the optical carrier of the uplink recovered from the downlink, a larger modulation index of the downlink causes a worse crosstalk from the downlink to the uplink.     

64 GHz optical millimeter-wave generation by octupling 8 GHz local oscillator via a nested LiNbO3 modulator

A novel scheme to generate a 64 GHz optical millimeter (mm)-wave via a nested LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder modulator with an 8 GHz local oscillator is proposed and simulated. Since the frequency response of the modulator and the local oscillator frequency are greatly reduced, the bandwidth requirements of the optical and electrical components in the transmitter are significantly decreased. The simulation results show that the generated optical mm-wave signal maintains good performance even after being transmitted over 20 km standard single-mode fiber.     

A tunable and reconfigurable microwave photonic filter based on two cascaded modulators and a dispersive medium

A novel tunable and reconfigurable microwave photonic filter based on two cascaded modulators and a dispersive medium is proposed, theoretically discussed and experimentally demonstrated. A single-wavelength LD and a modulator (either a Mach-Zehnder modulator or a phase modulator which can avoid the dc bias drift problem) are used to obtain a multi-wavelength optical source. By adjusting the modulation frequency and the bias voltage on the modulators, the wavelength spacing and the relative amplitude of the optical tones change, thus making the filter tunable and reconfigurable. The experimental results show that the proposed filters have good tunability and reconfigurability and the mainlobe-to-sidelobe ratio of around 25 dB is achieved.     

Performance improvement and wavelength reuse in millimeter-wave radio-over-fiber links incorporating all-fiber optical interleaver

Simultaneous downlink performance improvement and uplink wavelength reuse in a full-duplex millimeter-wave (MMW) radio-over-fiber (RoF) system by using a simple and cost-effective all-fiber optical interleaver are proposed and demonstrated. The MMW RoF downlink performance improvement is based on suppressing optical carrier-to-sideband ratio (OCSR), with which the mechanism is confirmed by theoretic analysis and derived experimental results. Measured results show that, by suppressing OCSR using a fabricated all-fiber optical interleaver, the downlink optical receiver sensitivity is improved about 2.1 dB. The downlink data rate is 1.25 Gbit/s and the carrier frequency is 58.1 GHz; the link consists of 6 km optical single-mode fiber and 1 m wireless connection. On the other hand, with the interleaver suppressing downlink OCSR, simultaneously an optical carrier is recovered from the RoF downlink and is reused for RoF uplink transmission. The uplink is operated at 62.9 GHz and the data rate is the same 1.25 Gbit/s. With the recovered optical carrier, a laser-free remote access point is achieved. The principle, structure, and fabrication of an all-fiber optical interleaver are also presented in this paper.     

Reduction in timing jitter by chirp selection for externally modulated return to zero optical soliton pulse at 10 Gb/s

We investigate the chirp selection of externally modulated RZ soliton pulse at 10 Gb/s for fiber optical communication systems for the reduction in timing jitter. We have chosen single arm Mach-Zehnder amplitude modulator with sin² electrical shaped input-output (P-V) characteristic and its chirp range has been varied in the range of −5 to 5. The timing jitter, Q factor and bit error rate (BER) generated for the chirp range has been studied for various fiber lengths and post compensation has been demonstrated to reduce the timing jitter. The number of fixed output amplifiers after every 60 km span is varied from 2 to 10 and corresponding accumulated ASE noise has been studied to manage timing jitter and BER in permissible range, i.e. 5 ps and 10⁻⁹, respectively. It is observed that when two fiber spans are taken then the compensating fiber length for the system is less than 20 km for each case of the chirp considered. For 10 fiber spans, the compensating fiber length increases in the range 60-90 km depending upon the value of chirp taken. Finally it is shown that the chirp value of external modulator should be set to either 0 or −1 for externally modulated RZ soliton pulse in 10 Gb/s optical communication system which makes the system more insensitive to the timing jitter and the selection of dispersion compensating fiber length.     

The L-band EDFA of high clamped gain and low noise figure implemented using fiber Bragg grating and double-pass method

The L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) of low noise figure and high clamped-gain using gain-clamped and double-pass configuration is presented in this paper. A total of five different configurations of EDFAs by reflection scheme with single forward pumping schemes are examined and compared here. Among these configurations, we first find the configuration of 1480-nm pumped L-band EDFA with optimum gain and noise figure value. To further minimize the gain variation, a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with 1615-nm center wavelength and 1-nm bandwidth is determined and added in double-pass L-band EDFA. The gain variation and maximum noise figure of EDFA while channel dropping is investigated. As the number of channel dropping from 32 to 4, the L-band type-A EDFA keep the variation of gain within 2.9 dB and the maximum noise figure below 5 dB with each channel’s input power of −23 dBm.     

Impact of extinction ratio of single arm sin LiNbO3 Mach-Zehnder modulator on the performance of 10 and 20 Gb/s NRZ optical communication system

We investigate the impact of extinction ratio of single arm sin² LiNbO₃ Mach-Zehnder (MZ) amplitude modulator on the performance of 10 and 20 Gb/s single-channel optical communication system. For different fiber lengths, the system performance has been analyzed with the increase in the extinction ratio. The effect of variation in dispersion parameter has also been illustrated. The impact of extinction ratio (ζ), dispersion parameter and length of the fiber has been further optimized with minimum bit error rate (BER) at optimal decision threshold (10⁻⁹) for 10 and 20 Gb/s bit rate. It is found that the system gives optimum performance at extinction ratio (ζ) value 20 dB. The increase in the transmission distance from 468 km for 10 Gb/s to 532 km for 20 Gb/s has been reported, and 8 dB improvement in the Q value has been observed as the value of ζ is increased from 10 to 20 dB. At 20 Gb/s, the system gives optimum performance for dispersion parameter value only up to 4 ps/nm km; however, at 10 Gb/s the system can operate for dispersion values up to 14.3 ps/nm km. Further we investigate the self-phase modulation (SPM) effect for the increase in the input power. It is observed that the SPM effect is negligible below 3 dB m input power and it increases at higher power levels.     

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.     

Simulation of DWDM signals using optimum span scheme with cascaded optimized semiconductor optical amplifiers

We numerically simulated the ten channels at 10 Gb/s dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transmission faithfully over 17,227 km using 70 km span of single mode fiber (SMF) and dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) using optimum span scheme at channel spacing 20 GHz. For this purpose, inline optimized semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and DPSK format are used. We optimized the SOA parameters for inline amplifier with minimum crosstalk and amplified spontaneous emission noise with sufficient gain at bias current 400 mA. For this bias current, constant gain 36.5 dB is obtained up to saturation power 21.35 mW. We have also optimized the optical phase modulator bandwidth for 400 mA current which is around 5.5 GHz with crosstalk −14.2 dB between two channels at spacing 20 GHz.We show the 10×10 Gb/s transmission over 70 km distance with inline amplifier has good signal power received as compared to without amplifier, even at equal quality factor. We further investigated the optimum span scheme for 5670 km transmission distance for 10×10 Gb/s with channel spacing 20 at 5.5 GHz optical phase modulator bandwidth. As we increase the transmission distance up to 17,227 km, there is increase in power penalty with reasonable quality.The impact of optical power received and Q factor at 5670 and 17,227 km transmission distance for different span schemes for all channels has been illustrated. For launched optical power less than saturation, all channels are obtained at bit error rate floor of 10⁻¹⁰.     

Cost-effective and dispersion-tolerant cascade modulation for millimeter-wave-over-fiber applications

In millimeter-wave-over-fiber (MWoF) feeder systems, the received millimeter-wave signals at the remote antennas (RAs) can suffer from signal fading by chromatic dispersion of optical fiber. This can be substantially mitigated by Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) based photonic up-conversion technique. In this technique, the data signals at intermediate frequency (IF) are frequency up-converted to millimeter-wave frequency by an MZM biased at its transmission null point. However, this scheme requires a costly, high-speed MZM, which will hinder the widespread of this technique for cost-sensitive MWoF applications. Hence, we propose and demonstrate a cost-effective way of reducing the cost of MWoF optical transmitters based on photonic up-conversion technique. We employ a dual wavelength source composed of a directly modulated laser and a polarimetric filter. This source is used to generate a millimeter-wave tone signal and to frequency up-convert the IF data signals to millimeter-wave frequency. The dual wavelength source is also shared with numerous RAs for further cost reduction. Our experimental demonstration performed with 30 Msymbol/s 16-quadrature amplitude modulation signals shows that we can transmit the 20 GHz millimeter-wave signals over 25 km standard single-mode fiber without any transmission penalty.