System performance analysis of time-division-multiplexing passive optical network using directly modulated lasers or colorless optical network units

Abstract. As a promising technology for broadband communication, passive optical network (PON) has been deployed to support the last-mile broadband access network. In particular, time-division-multiplexing PON (TDM-PON) has been widely used owing to its mature technology and low cost. To practically implement TDM-PONs, the combination of intensity modulation and direct detection is a very promising technique because it achieves cost reduction in system installation and maintenance. However, the current intensity-modulation and direct-detection TDM-PON still suffers from some problems, which mainly include a high-power penalty, detrimental Brillouin backscattering (BB), and so on. Thus, using directly modulated lasers (DMLs) and colorless optical network units (ONUs), respectively, two intensity-modulation and direct-detection TDM-PON architectures are proposed. Using VPI (an optical simulation software developed by VPIphotonics company) simulators, we first analyze the influences on DML-based intensity-modulation and direct-detection TDM-PON (system 1) performances, which mainly include bit error rate (BER) and power penalty. Next, the BB effect on the BER of the intensity-modulation and direct-detection TDM-PON that uses colorless ONUs (system 2) is also investigated. The simulation results show that: (1) a low-power penalty is achieved without degrading the BER of system 1, and (2) the BB can be effectively reduced using phase modulation of the optical carrier in system 2.