16-QAM optical packet switching with real-time self-homodyne detection using polarization-multiplexed pilot-carrier

We first demonstrated 20-Gbit/s 16-QAM optical packet switching and real-time detection. The modulated optical packets and pilot-carriers were simultaneously generated from a prototype pilot-carrier vector modulator and detected by simple self-homodyne receivers. Error-free operation was confirmed by a real-time error count using a packet BERT.