Terabit-Per-Second Optical Super-Channel Receiver Models for Partial Demultiplexing of an OFDM Spectrum

Terabit-per-second (Tb/s) transmission capacity for the next generation of long-haul communication networks can be achieved using multicarrier optical super-channel technology. In an elastic orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) super-channel transmission system, demultiplexing a portion of an entire spectrum in the form of a subband with minimum power is critically required. A major obstacle to achieving this goal is the analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which is power-hungry and extremely expensive. Without a proper ADC that can work with low power, it is unrealistic to design a 100G coherent receiver suitable for a commercially deployable optical network. Discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is often seen as a primary technique for understanding partial demultiplexing, which can be attained either optically or electronically. If fairly comparable performance can be achieved with an all-optical DFT circuit, then a solution independent of data rate and modulation format can be obtained. In this paper, we investigate two distinct OFDM super-channel receiver models, based on electronic and all-optical DFT-technologies, for partial carrier demultiplexing in a multi-Tb/s transmission system. The performance comparison of the receivers is discussed in terms of bit-error-rate (BER) performance.