Demonstration of high-speed quadrature phase shift keying vector signal generation employing a single Mach–Zehnder modulator with phase precoding technology

Abstract. We numerically and experimentally investigate high-speed quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) vector signal generation based on a single Mach–Zehnder intensity modulator employing a precoding technique. We experimentally demonstrate 16-Gbaud QPSK vector signal generation at 16-GHz carrier adopting optical carrier suppression with precoding technique, and it is the highest baud rate generated by this technology. The 16-Gbaud QPSK modulated vector signal is delivered over a 20-km large effective area fiber or 2-km single-mode fiber with a bit-error-rate less than the hard-decision forward-error-correction threshold of 3.8×10−3.