Quasi-Single-Mode Fiber Transmission for Optical Communications

The transmission of a single fundamental mode in a fiber with cutoff wavelength above the transmission band is studied as a means of allowing a larger fiber effective area and reducing fiber nonlinearity. The reduction of nonlinear impairments is achieved at the expense of a potential new linear impairment in the form of multipath interference (MPI). We use a power-coupled-mode formalism to analyze the growth of MPI, and the effects of fiber and cable attributes on its magnitude and the required complexity of digital signal processing to combat the MPI. Hybrid fiber spans comprised partially of a quasi-single-mode fiber are also analyzed using a modification of the Gaussian noise model of coherent systems to predict optimal configurations, and results from transmission experiments are presented that demonstrate very high spectral efficiencies and performance surpassing that of a purely single-mode fiber system.

[1]  John D. Downie,et al.  First quasi-single-mode transmission over transoceanic distance using few-mode fibers , 2015, 2015 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC).

[2]  R. Essiambre,et al.  Nonlinear Shannon Limit in Pseudolinear Coherent Systems , 2012, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[3]  Zhenning Tao,et al.  Multiplier-Free Intrachannel Nonlinearity Compensating Algorithm Operating at Symbol Rate , 2011, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[4]  P. Winzer,et al.  Capacity Limits of Optical Fiber Networks , 2010, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[6]  Hwa-Yaw Tam,et al.  Long-haul quasi-single-mode transmissions using few-mode fiber in presence of multi-path interference. , 2015, Optics express.

[7]  John D. Downie,et al.  20.7-Tb/s repeater-less transmission over 401.1-km using QSM fiber and XPM compensation via transmitter-side DBP , 2016, 2016 21st OptoElectronics and Communications Conference (OECC) held jointly with 2016 International Conference on Photonics in Switching (PS).

[8]  Gaston H. Gonnet,et al.  On the LambertW function , 1996, Adv. Comput. Math..

[9]  John D. Downie,et al.  Transmission of 112 Gb/s PM-QPSK signals over up to 635 km of multimode optical fiber , 2011, 2011 37th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication.

[10]  Snigdharaj K. Mishra,et al.  256 Gb/s PM-16-QAM quasi-single-mode transmission over 2600 km using few-mode fiber with multi-path interference compensation , 2014, OFC 2014.

[11]  P. Poggiolini,et al.  The GN-Model of Fiber Non-Linear Propagation and its Applications , 2014, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[12]  Snigdharaj K. Mishra,et al.  QUASI-SINGLE-MODE FIBER TRANSMISSION FOR SUBMARINE SYSTEMS , 2016 .

[13]  J. Kahn,et al.  Compensation of Dispersion and Nonlinear Impairments Using Digital Backpropagation , 2008, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[14]  W. Anderson,et al.  Length dependence of the effective cutoff wavelength in single-mode fibers , 1984 .

[15]  P. Poggiolini.  The GN Model of Non-Linear Propagation in Uncompensated Coherent Optical Systems , 2012, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[16]  G. Bosco,et al.  Fiber figure of merit based on maximum reach , 2013, 2013 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (OFC/NFOEC).

[17]  I. Roudas,et al.  Coupled-Mode Theory of Multipath Interference in Quasi-Single Mode Fibers , 2015, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[18]  Ioannis Roudas,et al.  Unrepeatered 256 Gb/s PM-16QAM transmission over up to 304 km with simple system configurations. , 2014, Optics express.

[19]  John D. Downie,et al.  Assessment of MPI compensation effectiveness as functions of MPI level and number of crosstalk terms for a 256 Gb/s PM-16QAM signal , 2015 .

[20]  Guifang Li,et al.  Adaptive frequency-domain equalization for the transmission of the fundamental mode in a few-mode fiber. , 2012, Optics express.

[21]  John D. Downie,et al.  Optical fibers for flexible networks and systems [Invited] , 2016, IEEE/OSA Journal of Optical Communications and Networking.

[22]  B Zhu,et al.  10 x 112Gb/s PDM-QPSK transmission over 5032 km in few-mode fibers. , 2010, Optics express.

[23]  Scott S.-H. Yam,et al.  Reducing the Complexity of Nonlinearity Pre-compensation Using Symmetric EDC and Pulse Shaping , 2013 .

[24]  John D. Downie,et al.  Capacity-approaching transmission over 6375 km at spectral efficiency of 8.3 bit/s/Hz , 2016, 2016 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC).

[25]  E. Ip,et al.  Nonlinear Compensation Using Backpropagation for Polarization-Multiplexed Transmission , 2010, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[26]  Xi Chen,et al.  Closed-form expressions for nonlinear transmission performance of densely spaced coherent optical OFDM systems. , 2010, Optics express.

[27]  A. Gnauck,et al.  Penalties from in-band crosstalk for advanced optical modulation formats , 2011, 2011 37th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication.

[28]  W A Reed,et al.  Measurement of the nonlinear index of silica-core and dispersion-shifted fibers. , 1994, Optics letters.

[29]  John D. Downie,et al.  Towards Superior Transmission Performance in Submarine Systems: Leveraging UltraLow Attenuation and Large Effective Area , 2016, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[30]  Joachim Streckert,et al.  Cutoff wavelength of single-mode fibers: Definition, measurement, and length and curvature dependence , 1989 .