40-Gb/s tandem electroabsorption modulator

In this letter, we have developed a tandem electroabsorption modulator with an integrated semiconductor optical amplifier that is capable of both nonreturn-to-zero and return-to-zero (RZ) data transmission at 40 Gb/s. The tandem modulator consists of a broad-band data encoder and a narrow-band pulse carver. The pulse carver is able to produce 5-ps pulses with more than 20 dB of extinction. The on-chip semiconductor optical amplifier provides up to 8.5 dB of fiber-to-fiber gain and enables the modulator to be operated with zero insertion loss. Devices have been realized with greater than 40-GHz bandwidth, and 13-dB dynamic extinction for a 2.5-V swing. For optimized designs bandwidths of nearly 60 GHz: have been realized. Using these devices penalty free RZ data transmission over a 100-kin dispersion compensated fiber link has been demonstrated with a received power sensitivity of -29 dBm     

Combining DPSK and duobinary for the downstream in 40-Gb/s long-reach WDM-PONs

We propose and demonstrate combining differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) and duobinary transmission for the downstream in 40-Gb/s long-reach wavelength division multiplexed-passive optical networks (WDM-PONs) in order to provide robust transmission performance in the backhaul section and simple detection at the ONUs. DPSK is deployed in the trunk span as it provides stronger robustness to fiber nonlinearity. Duobinary is used in the access span where its higher chromatic dispersion tolerance relieves the need for dispersion compensation. All-optical multichannel modulation format conversion from DPSK to duobinary is realized in the local exchange in a single delay interferometer to reduce system cost. Single and multi-channel 80-km long-reach DPSK transmission and up to 5-km duobinary access transmission are experimentally demonstrated at 40 Gb/s. The proposed approach shows great potential for future high data rate optical access networks.     

40-Gb/s high-power modulator driver IC for lightwave communicationsystems

A monolithic integrated modulator driver with a data decision function for high-speed optical fiber links is presented. The integrated circuit (IC) was manufactured in a 0.2-μm gate length AlGaAs/InGaAs high electron mobility transistor technology with an f_T of 68 GHz. The modulator driver IC features differential configuration and operates up to 40 Gb/s with a clock phase margin of 210° and an output voltage swing of 2.9 V_p-p at each output. The maximum slew rate of the output signal is 200 mV/ps. The power dissipation of the circuit is 1.6 W using a single supply voltage of -5 V     

Experimental and theoretical characterization of a 40-Gb/s long-haul single-channel transmission system

We present a comparison between experiment and simulation of a 40-Gb/s periodically stationary dispersion-managed soliton (DMS) system in a recirculating loop. We find that we can propagate an error-free signal over 6400 km at 40 Gb/s and over 12 000 km if we lower the data rate to 10 Gb/s, keeping all other parameters constant. A careful analysis of the limiting factors shows the strong influence of nonlinear optical pulse-to-pulse interactions, causing a large increase in timing jitter. At a transmission distance of 6400 km, a large fraction of the jitter is due to pulse-to-pulse interactions. Moreover, we find that the system performance is very sensitive to parameter variations. We conclude that periodically stationary DMS systems suffer from numerous problems when increasing the data rate, suggesting that it may be impractical for wavelength-division multiplex transmission at 40 Gb/s.     

40 Gbit/s silicon optical modulator for highspeed applications

A high-speed silicon optical modulator based on the free carrier plasma dispersion effect is presented. It is based on carrier depletion of a pn diode embedded inside a silicon-on-insulator waveguide. To achieve high-speed performance, a travelling-wave design is used to allow co-propagation of the electrical and optical signals along the length of the device. The resulting modulator has a 3 dB bandwidth of ~30 GHz and can transmit data up to 40 Gbit/s.     

Design of an opto-electronic modulator driver amplifier for 40-Gb/s data rate systems

This paper describes the design and performance of a broad-band driver amplifier for 40-Gb/s noreturn-to-zero system applications. The function of the amplifier is to raise the output from a multiplexer (nominally 0.4 V peak to peak) to a level of /spl sim/5 Vp-p, which is suitable to drive a GaAs-based Mach-Zehnder optoelectronic modulator. The amplifier module contains two GaAs pseudomorphic high-electron mobility transistor traveling-wave MMICs fabricated on a 0.2-/spl mu/m gate process. The design issues relating to the specific requirements of a modulator driver amplifier and the techniques to resolve them are described.     

Tunable dispersion equalizer with a divided thin-film heater for40-Gb/s RZ transmissions

We have developed tunable dispersion equalizers with a chirped fiber grating on the divided thin-film heater. The divided thin-film heater took an important role in the control of dispersion and dispersion slope. We successfully demonstrated the dispersion control from -304 to -196 ps/nm, the dispersion slope control from +100 to -300 ps/nm², and good performance in 40-Gb/s return-to-zero transmission by using this tunable dispersion equalizer     

Electro-optic polymer-based modulator design and performance for 40 Gb/s system applications

We investigate the potential performance of polymer-based electro-optic (EO) modulators for high-speed systems at 40 Gb/s and beyond. General strategies and specific designs are presented to reduce the modulator half-wave drive voltage while maintaining a broadband response. In addition, we consider practical system requirements that may allow the relaxation of certain modulator design parameters to further improve performance. Designs are presented that may enable a 3-dB electrical bandwidth of 30 GHz with a single-ended half-wave drive voltage of /spl sim/1.6 V for 1.3-/spl mu/m light assuming an effective EO coefficient of 30 pm/V in the waveguide core.     

A 40-Gb/s/ch WDM transmission with SPM/XPM suppression throughprechirping and dispersion management

This paper proposes to combine prechirping with dispersion management scheme in such a way as to suppress the power penalty induced by self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) in 40-Gb/s per channel wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) transmission systems with long-amplifier spacing. First, we show that the optimum total dispersion to minimize SPM depends on prechirping and the local dispersion of the transmission fiber, unlike that for minimizing XPM. Next, it is shown that, by optimizing the combination of prechirping and local dispersion, these two optima can be made to match so as to improve the allowable maximum fiber input power. Finally, the operation of the proposed optimization scheme is confirmed experimentally, and 4×40-Gb/s WDM transmission over 400 km of nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber (NZDSF) is demonstrated successfully with the fiber input power of +10 dBm/ch and 250 GHz channel spacing     

Analysis of feedback for higher order polarization-mode dispersion mitigation of NRZ 40-Gb/s optical transmission

First-order polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) compensation by means of a polarization controller and a differential delay line is not sufficient to guarantee error-free transmission for 40-Gb/s channels when higher order effects severely increase signal distortion. Higher order mitigation is possible by cascading more than one first-order block. However, only two-stage or three-stage devices remain simple enough to be actually controlled. The performance of such higher order PMD compensators is evaluated by means of numerical simulations. Two different feedback signals have been used, demonstrating that first-order and higher order PMD distortion of nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) pulses at 40 Gb/s can be strongly mitigated for instantaneous values of the differential group delay (DGD) up to the bit slot, when the compensator is properly controlled.     

Performance Comparison of Duobinary Formats for 40-Gb/s and Mixed 10/40-Gb/s Long-Haul WDM Transmission on SSMF and LEAF Fibers

Duobinary formats are today considered as being one of the most promising cost-effective solutions for the deployment of 40-Gb/s technology on existing 10-Gb/s WDM long-haul transmission infrastructures. Various methods for generating duobinary formats have been developed in the past few years but to our knowledge their respective performances for 40-Gb/s WDM transmission have never been really compared. In this paper, we made an extensive numerical evaluation of the robustness of these different types of duobinary transmitter to accumulation of ASE noise, chromatic dispersion, PMD but also to single-channel and WDM 40-Gb/s transmission impairments on standard single-mode fiber. A numerical evaluation of the ability of duobinary format for mixed 10/40-Gb/s WDM long-haul transmission with 50-GHz channel spacing is also led, on both standard single-mode and LEAF fibers, and compared to DQPSK format. In order to clearly identify the limiting transmission effects on each of these two fiber types, the assessment of the performance of a 50-GHz spaced WDM 40-Gb/s long-haul transmission using either duobinary or DQPSK channels only is implemented at last.      

Direct current to 34.1-Gb/s, 19-Gb/s/cm/sup 3/ low-jitter parallel optical interconnecting module for high-speed memory test systems

A protocol-free parallel optical interconnecting module is introduced as a solution to solve memory test system transmission bottlenecks. The optical transmission system flexibly suited for a memory test system is reviewed and discussed. A parallel optical module capable of transmitting from dc to 34.1Gb/s (4.267 Gb/s /spl times/8 ch) has been developed. A data transmission throughput density per unit volume of 19 Gb/s/cm/sup 3/ is achieved. A random jitter of less than 3-ps root-mean-square is also achieved. Furthermore, high-density optical connector, high-density optical fiber cable, fiber guides, and cable management/reinforcement members suited for mechanical requirements of the memory test system have been developed.     

Clock and data recovery IC for 40-Gb/s fiber-optic receiver

The integrated clock and data recovery (CDR) circuit is a key element for broad-band optical communication systems at 40 Gb/s. We report a 40-Gb/s CDR fabricated in indium-phosphide heterojunction bipolar transistor (InP HBT) technology using a robust architecture of a phase-locked loop (PLL) with a digital early-late phase detector. The faster InP HBT technology allows the digital phase detector to operate at the full data rate of 40 Gb/s. This, in turn, reduces the circuit complexity (transistor count) and the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) requirements. The IC includes an on-chip LC VCO, on-chip clock dividers to drive an external demultiplexer, and low-frequency PLL control loop and on-chip limiting amplifier buffers for the data and clock I/O. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a mixed-signal IC operating at the clock rate of 40 GHz. We also describe the chip architecture and measurement results.     

20-Gb/s integrated DBR laser-EA modulator by selective area growth for 1.55-/spl mu/m WDM applications

For the first time, selective area growth (SAG) has been used for the monolithic integration of a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser with an electroabsorption (EA) modulator, designed for WDM communication systems at 1.55 /spl mu/m. A 16-GHz bandwidth combined with a 6-nm tuning range make this component compatible with multiwavelength 20-Gb/s transmission experiments.     

40-Gb/s systems on G.652 fibers: comparison between periodic and all-at-the-end dispersion compensation

In the literature, two system solutions have been proposed to overcome high dispersion problems typical of G.652 fibers at high bit rates (40 Gb/s): they are periodic and all-at-the-end dispersion compensation. We carry out an exhaustive comparison between the two methods that, up to this moment, have been studied separately. In the first part, we introduce a simplified model on strong dispersion management (DM) with intrachannel four-waves mixing (IFWM) and intrachannel cross-phase modulation (IXPM). We then carry out extensive numerical simulations of a complete system in order to verify the results as a function of the input average power and of the input pulsewidth. Finally, we tackle a typical system aspect, i.e., the influence of nonlinear effects on dispersion compensating fibers (DCFs).     

Fiber nonlinearity and dispersion mitigation in 40-Gb/s NRZ WDM transmission using a multichannel optical equalizer

We investigate the mitigation of distortion due to self-phase modulation and dispersion in 40-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero wavelength-division-multiplexed transmission using a multichannel optical equalizer. The ability of the equalizer to reduce the signal degradation due to fiber nonlinearities was demonstrated. We achieved 21-channel transmission at BER <10/sup -9/ without forward error correction over 750 km of true wave reduced slope fiber with 107-km amplifier span lengths.     

Tunable dispersion compensation at 40-Gb/s using a multicavity etalon all-pass filter with NRZ, RZ, and CS-RZ modulation

We present a multichannel tunable dispersion compensator (TDC) based on multicavity all-pass etalons that is capable of operation at 40 Gb/s. The device has a tuning range of +200/-220 ps/nm with a group delay ripple < /spl plusmn/5 ps over a channel bandwidth of 80 GHz, an overall loss of < 5.2 dB, very low insertion loss ripple, and can operate on any channel on a 200-GHz grid over the C-band. In addition, we present system performance results at 40 Gb/s using NRZ, RZ, and CS-RZ modulation, compensating up to 45 km of nonzero dispersion shifted fiber (NZDSF). Our results show that this device introduces very little excess system penalty with signal frequency drifts of up to 20 GHz when operated near the center of its tuning range. For single channel experiments with fiber, the system penalty increase versus signal detuning is more significant, but can be reduced by dynamically optimizing the device dispersion during detuning. Finally, we demonstrate simultaneous compensation of 4 channels across the C-band over 25 km of NZDSF.     

Demonstration of a dual-depletion-region electroabsorption modulator at 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength for high-speed and low-driving-voltage performance

We demonstrate a novel structure of electroabsorption modulator (EAM) at a 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength: the dual-depletion-region EAM. After an n/sup +/ delta-doped layer was inserted into the thick intrinsic region (550 nm) of a tradition p-i-n modulator, the tradeoff between driving-voltage and electrical bandwidth performance can be released effectively. This new structure can also release the burden imposed on downscaling the width or length of high-speed EAM with low driving-voltage performance. The microwave and electrical-to-optical measurement of this novel device with traveling-wave electrodes show very convincing results.     

40-Gb/s NRZ wavelength conversion with 3R regeneration using an EA modulator and SOA polarization-discriminating delay interferometer

We propose and demonstrate, for the first time, to our knowledge, a 40-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero wavelength converter with 3R regeneration based on an electroabsorption modulator and semiconductor optical amplifier polarization-discriminating delay interferometer. The results show that the root mean square timing jitter and optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of the regenerated signal are kept to 0.68 ps and higher than 40 dB/0.1 nm, respectively. In addition, the measured receiver sensitivity (BER=10/sup -9/) is improved from -19 to -25.2 dBm at the input OSNR of 26 dB/0.1 nm.