A self-seeded reflective SOA-based optical network unit for optical beat interference robust WDM/SCM-PON link

We have proposed and experimentally demonstrated a novel optical source configuration that uses a self-seeded reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) as an optical network unit (ONU) in a wavelength division multiplexed/subcarrier multiplexing (SCM)-passive optical network (PON). A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was used to obtain a single longitudinal mode of the RSOA. The proposed ONU configuration is simple, cost-effective, and effective regardless of wavelength allocation. Additionally, it would be robust for optical beat interference (OBI) noise. As the ONU is composed only of an RSOA and FBG, the self-seeded RSOA, due to the strong self-injection caused by the reflection of the FBG, has a broad optical spectrum. A self-homodyne apparatus method was performed in order to demonstrate the robustness of the self-seeded RSOA in OBI. To confirm the validity of the proposed scheme, a 16-quadrature amplitude modulation transmission experiment was performed in a 10-, 20-km optical access link with an SCM frequency of 1 GHz. An error vector magnitude of less than 4% for 2 Msps was successfully obtained through the transmission experiment.