Efficient joint timing and frequency synchronization algorithm for coherent optical OFDM systems.

A joint timing and frequency synchronization algorithm is proposed for coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) systems. The timing and frequency synchronization is realized by using only one training symbol which is composed of conjugated symmetric sequence. The timing estimation of the proposed algorithm has the advantage of being robust to poor optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) and chromatic dispersion (CD), and the frequency estimation range of fractional subcarrier spacing can be achieved. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed joint synchronization algorithm is verified in both simulations and a 47.3 Gbit/s 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) CO-OFDM system.