Piecewise Linear Equalizer for DML based PAM-4 Signal Transmission over a Dispersion Uncompensated Link

Directly modulated laser (DML) and direct detection (DD) based pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) for short reach optical communications has attracted lots of research interests due to its low cost and simple configuration. However, the directly modulated PAM signal usually suffers from distortions af...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Lightwave Technology
Main Authors: Fu, Yan, Kong, Deming, Xin, Haiyun, Jia, Shi, Zhang, Kuo, Bi, Meihua, Hu, Weisheng, Hu, Hao
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Linear equalizer
Direct-modulated laser
Pulse-amplitude modulation
Direct detection
Digital signal processing
DML
Online Access:https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/f0d03942-08d6-4686-ad8d-8ea2222a8d52
https://doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2019.2948096
https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/files/202995075/08873547.pdf
Description
Summary:Directly modulated laser (DML) and direct detection (DD) based pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) for short reach optical communications has attracted lots of research interests due to its low cost and simple configuration. However, the directly modulated PAM signal usually suffers from distortions after the transmission over a dispersion uncompensated link. Due to the adiabatic chirp of the DML working in a high output power region, different intensity levels of the PAM signal correspond to different frequency offsets, thus resulting in amplitude-dependent skew after the transmission over a dispersion uncompensated link. It will degrade signal quality and limit transmission distance. In this paper, we, for the first time, propose a computational efficient piecewise linear (PWL) equalizer to correct the amplitude-dependent skew due to the interaction between the DML chirp and chromatic dispersion in the fiber. By using the PWL equalizer, the amplitude-dependent skew is corrected, and we successfully transmit 56 Gb/s PAM-4 signal over 40 km and 84 Gb/s PAM-4 signal over 20 km dispersion uncompensated link in the C band, with a bit error ratio (BER) below the HD-FEC threshold (${3.8\times10^{-3}}$). To demonstrate the low computational complexity of the PWL, we compare its complexity with 2nd order Volterra equalizer for a similar BER performance. The results show that the computational complexity can be reduced by 61.4% and 40.4% for the 56 Gb/s and 84 Gb/s PAM-4 signal transmission, respectively.

Similar Items