Optimal modulation formats for 2 560 km optical transmission with low power penalty

The production mechanism of non-return-to-zero (NRZ), return-to-zero (RZ) and carrier suppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) was analyzed theoretically in this paper. We compared the transmission performance of CSRZ with RZ and NRZ formats at 10 Gb/s system by numerical simulation. And we simulated the transmission model constructed with Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) as the solo amplifier and the chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) as the solo dispersion compensator used in the system. A practical 8 × 10 Gb/s 2 560 km transmitted experiment was conducted in straight line with these different modulation formats mentioned above and the experiment results show very good agreement with the result of computer simulation. The CSRZ format is more effective than other formats in the system, and involved only 2.5 dB power penalty cost in the practical 2 560 km error-free experiment. The results also show that CSRZ will help to optimize the transmitted results and reduce the transmitted penalty further. Translated from Acta Optica Sinica, 2006, 26(3): 331–335 [译自: 光学学报]