NRZ versus RZ in 10-40-Gb/s dispersion-managed WDM transmissionsystems

We compare nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) with return-to-zero (RZ) modulation format for wavelength-division-multiplexed systems operating at data rates up to 40 Gb/s. We find that in 10-40-Gb/s dispersion-managed systems (single-mode fiber alternating with dispersion compensating fiber), NRZ is more adversely affected by nonlinearities, whereas RZ is more affected by dispersion. In this dispersion map, 10- and 20-Gb/s systems operate better using RZ modulation format because nonlinearity dominates. However, 40-Gb/s systems favor the usage of NRZ because dispersion becomes the key limiting factor at 40 Gb/s     

Performance evaluation of prechirped RZ and CS-RZ formats inhigh-speed transmission systems with dispersion management

This paper describes the transmission performance of prechirped return-to-zero (RZ) and prechirped carrier-suppressed return-to-zero (CS-RZ) signals over a periodically dispersion-compensated transmission line. We analyze the transmission characteristics of both formats, taking account the transmitter configuration expected, in which pulse chirping is generated by using both a phase modulator and a linear dispersion compensating device. We also discuss the dependence of the transmission characteristics on phase modulation, pre- and postcompensating dispersion, and receiver optical and electrical filter widths. We show that, in single-channel transmission, phase modulation effectively reduces the intrachannel nonlinear interaction and improves the transmission performance. Next, we discuss the transmission characteristics of chirped RZ and chirped CS-RZ signals in dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) signal transmission. In 100-GHz spaced 40-Gb/s-per-channel systems, it is shown that the phase modulation must be carefully optimized in order to minimize the linear crosstalk and waveform distortion induced by the intra- and interchannel nonlinear interaction in the transmission fiber     

Dispersion-managed solitons for 160-Gb/s data transmission

The use of dispersion-managed (DM) solitons for 160-Gb/s data transmission in fiber lines where the period of dispersion management is much shorter than the amplifier spacing is investigated through numerical simulations. It is shown that DM solitons outperform both standard solitons and “quasi-linear” return-to-zero (RZ) pulses. The dispersion tolerance is limited by pulse-to-pulse interactions and Gordon-Haus jitter and decreases with increasing transmission distance     

Low insertion loss and low dispersion penalty InGaAsP quantum-well high-speed electroabsorption modulator for 40-Gb/s very-short-reach, long-reach, and long-haul applications

We present a metal-organic-chemical-vapor-deposition-grown low-optical-insertion-loss InGaAsP/InP multiple-quantum-well electroabsorption modulator (EAM), suitable for both nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) applications. The EAM exhibits a dynamic (RF) extinction ratio of 11.5 dB at 1550 nm for 3 Vp-p drive under 40-Gb/s modulation. The optical insertion loss of the modulator in the on-state is -5.2 dB at 1550 nm. In addition, the EAM also exhibits a 3-dB small-signal response (S21) of greater than 38 GHz, allowing it to be used in both 40-Gb/s NRZ and 10-Gb/s RZ applications. The dispersion penalty at 40 Gb/s is measured to be 1.2 dB over /spl plusmn/40 ps/nm of chromatic dispersion. Finally, we demonstrate 40-Gb/s transmission performance over 85 km and 700 km.     

Ghost-pulse generation suppression in phase-modulated 40-Gb/s RZ transmission

40-Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) transmission in strong dispersion maps is limited by single-channel four-wave mixing. Appropriate phase modulation of the signal suppresses generation of the ghost pulses. Duobinary and modified duobinary encoding produce cancellation of nonlinear interaction while carrier-suppressed RZ generates perturbations that add up coherently.     

Dispersion tolerance and transmission distance of a 40-Gb/sdispersion management soliton transmission system

We investigate the tolerance of the variation of average dispersion in a 40-Gb/s dispersion-managed soliton (DMS) transmission system. It is theoretically shown that dispersion tolerance is governed by pulse broadening and soliton interaction, and that the largest dispersion tolerance can be achieved by optimizing the pulse energy depending on the transmission distance. We construct a 40-Gb/s recirculating loop transmission system and show that the dispersion tolerance of over 180 ps/nm, which is much larger than that of a linear nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) format system, can be realized by the optimization of the pulse energy at a transmission distance of more than 1000 km     

Impact of Channel Plan and Dispersion Map on Hybrid DWDM Transmission of 42.7-Gb/s DQPSK and 10.7-Gb/s OOK on 50-GHz Grid

We investigate experimentally the performance of 42.7-Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) differential quadrature phase-shift-keyed (DQPSK) channels in a dense wavelength-division-multiplexed transmission system having 10.7-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) on-off keyed (OOK) channels. Cross-phase modulation (XPM) from the OOK channels is found to be a dominating nonlinear penalty source for copropagating DQPSK channels in a dispersion-managed transmission link with multiple standard single-mode fiber spans. It is also found that the XPM penalty strongly depends on channel occupancy and residual dispersion per span (RDPS). Large RDPS effectively mitigates XPM even for the worst-case occupancy where a 42.7-Gb/s RZ-DQPSK channel is amidst several 10.7-Gb/s NRZ-OOK channels on a 50-GHz channel grid.     

Comparison between NRZ and RZ signal formats for in-line amplifiertransmission in the zero-dispersion regime

Nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) signal formats are experimentally and numerically compared for single-channel long-distance transmission in an in-line amplifier system with dispersion management providing average zero dispersion and local nonzero dispersion at an interval equal to the in-line amplifier spacing. Among a 20-ps RZ signal, a 40-ps RZ signal, and an NRZ signal transmitted in 10 Gb/s straight-line experiments, the last signal achieves the longest transmission distance of 6000 km while the others are limited to 4400 km. Numerical simulations explain these results well and show that, along with linear amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) accumulation, signal waveform distortion due to the combined effect of higher order group-velocity dispersion (GVD) and self-phase modulation (SPM) dominates the performance. Nonlinear optical noise enhancement is not obvious because of the fiber dispersion arrangement. Signals with large pulse widths are less affected by the combined effect, while small-width signals yield superior initial signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as determined by optical noise. A detailed simulation indicates that a pulse width of about 60 ps is optimum for long distance transmission under the fiber dispersion arranged in this paper     

All-Raman ultralong-haul single-wideband DWDM transmission systems with OADM capability

In this paper, we present a comprehensive experimental investigation of an all-Raman ultrawide single-band transmission system for both 10 and 40 Gb/s line rates. Enabling technologies include forward-Raman pumping of the transmission fiber, counter-Raman pumping of the fiber spans and dispersion compensation modules, wideband dispersion, and dispersion-slope compensation, and modulation formats resistant to both linear and nonlinear impairments. Ultralong-haul (ULH) 128/spl times/10 Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) and ultrahigh-capacity (UHC) 64/spl times/40 Gb/s carrier-suppressed (CS) RZ transmission are demonstrated for commercially deployed fiber types, including both standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) and nonzero dispersion shifted fibers (NZDSF). The span losses of 23 dB (NZDSF) and 20 dB (SSMF) are consistent with those encountered in terrestrial networks. The optical reaches for 10 Gb/s rate are 4000 km (NZDSF) and 3200 km (SSMF). Using the same distributed Raman amplification (DRA) scheme, UHC over 2.5 Tb/s at a 40-Gb/s per channel rate is also demonstrated for all of the tested fiber types and for optical reaches exceeding 1300 km. We then study the impact of including optical add/drop modules (OADMs) in the transmission system for both 10 and 40 Gb/s channel rates. System performance is characterized by the system margin and the transmission penalty. For all of the experiments shown in this paper, industrial margins and small transmission penalties consistent with operation in commercially deployable networks are demonstrated, showing the feasibility of practical implementation of all-Raman amplified systems for ULH and UHC optical backbones. Attractive features of single-wideband transmission enabled by DRA include simplicity of design, flexible gain and gain-ripple control, good noise performance, and a small system footprint.     

Long-haul WDM transmission using higher order fiber dispersionmanagement

We propose a fiber dispersion management scheme for large-capacity long-haul wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems that considers not only second- but also third-order dispersion characteristics using transmission fibers with opposite dispersion signs. It eliminates the waveform distortion of WDM signals that originates from the existence of third-order dispersion, which is a constraint placed on WDM capacity in conventional dispersion management, while reducing the interchannel interaction caused by the interplay of fiber nonlinearity and second-order dispersion. Design concept of the scheme is discussed to show the feasibility of using actual fiber parameters. An experimental investigation on transmission performance regarding the signal pulse format, nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ), and interchannel interaction caused by four-wave mixing (FWM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) is described for optimizing WDM system performance. It is experimentally shown that RZ pulse transmission is possible without significant spectral broadening over a wide wavelength range in dispersion managed fiber spans. Using these results together with a wideband optical amplifier gain-bandwidth management technique, yields long-distance WDM transmission with the capacity of 25×10 Gb/s over 9288 km     

Multigigabit-per-second optical baseband transmission system

Optical transmission baseband technology for multigigabit-per-second transmission is discussed. It is shown that a laser diode direct modulation scheme for multigigabit-per-second transmission is an extremely efficient approach to transform limited pulse transmission. The return to zero (RZ) format is effective for this approach. By the application of multigigabit-per-second monolithic IC technology, an 8-Gb/s optical regenerator and transmission experiment was successfully conducted through dispersive fiber. The experiment suggests that there is no degradation of transmission characteristics through more than 100 km of single-mode fiber within the wavelength region between zero and weak normal dispersion     

Stability of synchronous intensity modulation control of 40-Gb/sdispersion-managed soliton transmissions

The efficiency of transmission control of dispersion-managed solitons by means of in-line synchronous intensity modulation is numerically analyzed. We demonstrate that intensity modulation may lead to dramatic improvements in the transmission performance of 40-Gb/s dispersion-managed solitons. In particular, we identify the locations within the dispersion map where synchronous intensity modulation provides an efficient control of the pulse propagation. Namely, a stabilization of pulse energy fluctuations is achieved, with no need for additional in-line control by guiding filters. On the other hand, incorrectly placed intensity modulation may cause significant pulse instabilities     

Simultaneous compensation of laser chirp, Kerr effect, anddispersion in 10-Gb/s long-haul transmission systems

The effects of chirp and fiber nonlinearity in a directly modulated 10-Gb/s intensity-modulated direct-detection (IM-DD) fiber transmission system are investigated by simulation, and a simple and flexible technique for compensating these effects is discussed. Self-phase-modulation (SPM) in optical fiber can be equalized by an anomalous dispersion fiber, whereas pulse broadening caused by laser transient chirp can be compensated by normal dispersion. Using these characteristics, laser transient chirp, SPM, and fiber dispersion can be simultaneously compensated by equalizing fibers inserted within certain intervals. Optimum compensation is always realizable for such fixed equalizing fibers, since the magnitude of SPM can be controlled by changing the optical power in the fiber. Simulation suggests that this technique enables 10-Gb/s, 100-km fiber transmission by direct modulation     

Analysis of 40 Gb/s TDM-transmission over embedded standard fiberemploying chirped fiber grating dispersion compensators

Nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ)- and return-to-zero (RZ)-transmission formats are investigated for 1.55 μm 40 Gb/s fiber grating dispersion compensated standard fiber transmission. The RZ-format is shown to give a twofold increase in transmission distance compared with the conventional NRZ-format. In addition, a larger power margin is obtained at the expense of a reduced dispersion tolerance. System guidelines are proposed relating the pulse width, equalizer spacing, input power and maximum transmission distance. The results are compared with prior theoretical works at 40 Gb/s using equalizer fiber and optical phase conjugation     

High-Performance Optical 3R Regeneration for Scalable Fiber Transmission System Applications

This paper proposes and demonstrates optical 3R regeneration techniques for high-performance and scalable 10-Gb/s transmission systems. The 3R structures rely on monolithically integrated all-active semiconductor optical amplifier-based Mach-Zehnder interferometers (SOA-MZIs) for signal reshaping and optical narrowband filtering using a Fabry-Peacuterot filter (FPF) for all-optical clock recovery. The experimental results indicate very stable operation and superior cascadability of the proposed optical 3R structure, allowing error-free and low-penalty 10-Gb/s [pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS) 2²³-1 ] return-to-zero (RZ) transmission through a record distance of 1 250 000 km using 10 000 optical 3R stages. Clock-enhancement techniques using a SOA-MZI are then proposed to accommodate the clock performance degradations that arise from dispersion uncompensated transmission. Leveraging such clock-enhancement techniques, we experimentally demonstrate error-free 125 000-km RZ dispersion uncompensated transmission at 10 Gb/s (PRBS 2²³-1) using 1000 stages of optical 3R regenerators spaced by 125-km large-effective-area fiber spans. To evaluate the proposed optical 3R structures in a relatively realistic environment and to investigate the tradeoff between the cascadability and the spacing of the optical 3R, a fiber recirculation loop is set up with 264- and 462-km deployed fiber. The field-trial experiment achieves error-free 10-Gb/s RZ transmission using PRBS 2²³-1 through 264 000-km deployed fiber across 1000 stages of optical 3R regenerators spaced by 264-km spans     

Performance optimization of RZ data format in WDM systems using tunable pulse-width management at the transmitter

Tunable pulse-width management is one of the efficient methods to enhance the robustness of return-to-zero (RZ) data formats for long-haul transmission systems. We demonstrate both single channel and 4 /spl times/ 10-Gb/s wavelength-division-multiplexed performance optimization using tunable pulse-width management. Pure RZ single with tunable pulse-width is generated by changing the driving voltages on a phase modulator and the dispersion values of a tunable dispersion element simultaneously according to our simulation results. Varying the pulse width from 50 to 10 ps at the transmitter can almost double the transmission distance with 4% variation in the residual link dispersion.     

Theoretical and experimental analysis of the dependence of a signal's degree of polarization on the optical data spectrum

We show theoretically and experimentally the relationship between a signal's degree of polarization (DOP), all-order polarization mode dispersion (PMD), and the optical spectrum (and hence the data modulation format and pulse width), and that these effects must be taken into account when using the DOP for differential group delay (DGD) monitoring. We explain the theory behind how all-order PMD affects a signal's DOP, and observe the pulse-width dependence for 10-, 20-, and 40-Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) systems as the duty cycle changes. We then analyze and show (via simulation and experimentation) the effects of different data modulation formats (RZ, carrier-suppressed RZ, alternate-chirped RZ, and differential phase-shift keying) on the DOP in a DGD monitor. We conclude that the measurable DGD range and DOP sensitivity in DOP-based DGD monitors are dependent on a signal's pulse width and the data modulation format. We also show the theory behind the effects of first- and second-order PMD on the maximum and minimum DOP.     

10-GHz return-to-zero pulse source tunable in wavelength with asingle- or multiwavelength output based on four-wave mixing in a newlydeveloped highly nonlinear fiber

In this letter, a novel scheme for a wavelength-tunable pulse source (WTPS) is proposed and characterized. It is based on four-wave mixing (FWM) in a newly developed highly nonlinear fiber between a return-to-zero (RZ) pulsed signal at a fixed wavelength and a continuous wave probe tunable in wavelength. The corresponding FWM product acts as the WTPS, and is implemented in a 10-Gb/s, 160-km transmission experiment and in a 40-Gb/s multiplexing/demultiplexing experiment. The scheme can be expanded to a multiwavelength WTPS, which is demonstrated for two wavelengths. The introduced penalty using the WTPS compared to the original RZ pulses is negligible     

Dispersion-Managed Solitons and Optimization of the Dispersion Management

We overview recent progress in dispersion-managed (DM) fiber optic communications. Wavelength-division-multiplexing transmission of a DM soliton (or more general return-to-zero (RZ) formatted data) is an attractive way to realize middle- and long-distance ultra-high-capacity fiber communication systems. We present a theory of the DM optical soliton and a simple basic theory of the general DM RZ transmission. Two ordinary differential equations for the root-mean-square pulse width and chirp (momentum equations) describe the fast (during compensation period) evolution of the DM pulse. Applying chirped Gauss–Hermite orthogonal functions we derive a path-averaged propagation equation governing both the shape of the DM soliton and the slow (average) evolution of any chirped DM pulse. We describe the breathing dynamics of the self-similar core and oscillating tails of the DM optical pulse propagating in a fiber line with an arbitrary dispersion map. Based on the developed theory we describe the basic system principles, the design, and the optimization rules for DM fiber links. We demonstrate how to determine the energy enhancement of the DM soliton and optimal (chirp-free) points for launching of the signal, and how to evaluate the characteristics of a carrier signal for specific system parameters. DM solitons in systems with in-line filtering and Bragg gratings are also studied. Analytical results are illustrated by numerical simulations for a number of specific dispersion maps actively used in practice.     

A 40-Gb/s/ch WDM transmission with SPM/XPM suppression throughprechirping and dispersion management

This paper proposes to combine prechirping with dispersion management scheme in such a way as to suppress the power penalty induced by self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) in 40-Gb/s per channel wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) transmission systems with long-amplifier spacing. First, we show that the optimum total dispersion to minimize SPM depends on prechirping and the local dispersion of the transmission fiber, unlike that for minimizing XPM. Next, it is shown that, by optimizing the combination of prechirping and local dispersion, these two optima can be made to match so as to improve the allowable maximum fiber input power. Finally, the operation of the proposed optimization scheme is confirmed experimentally, and 4×40-Gb/s WDM transmission over 400 km of nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber (NZDSF) is demonstrated successfully with the fiber input power of +10 dBm/ch and 250 GHz channel spacing