[ANGLÈS] We propose and demonstrate a novel principle that combines optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (O-OFDM) and optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM). The principle is based on generating and time-multiplexing an OFDM symbol with a low duty-cycle, thus obtaining a higher aggregate bitrate. In principle the low duty-cycle OFDM symbol can be generated by pulse carving the symbol from a WDM source. In the receiver the obtained OTDM+OFDM signal is time-demultiplexed, which then allows frequency-demultiplexing the different subcarriers with an optical band-pass filter (OBPF). We have performed numerical simulations to identify the dependence of the performance on a number of parameters, for example to optimize the OBPF bandwidth. In an experimental demonstration, we achieve error-free performance for a 640 Gbits/s DPSK OFDM+OTDM signal based in a 50GHz spacing grid, yielding a spectral efficiency of 0,8 bit/Hz/s. Note that the OFDM symbol in the demonstration is achieved from a wavelength selective switch (WSS) based transmitter instead of by pulse carving a symbol from a WDM source.

The drive towards higher spectral efficiency and maximum power efficiency in optical systems has generated renewed interest in the optimization of optical transceivers. In this work, we study the different optical applications: Wide Area Networks (WANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), Local Area Networks (LANs) and Personal Area Networks (PANs). In WANs or long-haul systems, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) can compensate for linear distortions, such as group-velocity dispersion (GVD) and polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), provided the cyclic prefix is sufficiently long. Typically, GVD is dominant, as it requires a longer cyclic prefix. Assuming coherent detection, we show how to analytically compute the minimum number of subcarriers and cyclic prefix length required to achieve a specified power penalty, trading off power penalties from the cyclic prefix and from residual inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI). We derive an analytical expression for the power penalty from residual ISI and ICI. We also show that when nonlinear effects are present in the fiber, single-carrier with digital equalization outperforms OFDM for various dispersion maps. We also study the impairments of electrical to optical conversion when using Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulators. OFDM has a high peak-to-average ratio (PAR), which can result in low optical power efficiency when modulated through a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator. In addition, the nonlinear characteristic of the MZ can cause significant distortion on the OFDM signal, leading to in-band intermodulation products between subcarriers. We show that a quadrature MZ with digital pre-distortion and hard clipping is able to overcome the previous impairments. We consider quantization noise and compute the minimum number of bits required in the digital-to-analog converter (D/A). Finally, we discuss a dual-drive MZ as a simpler alternative for the OFDM modulator, but our results show that it requires a higher oversampling ratio to achieve the same performance as the quadrature MZ. In MANs, we discuss the use OFDM for combating GVD effects in amplified direct-detection (DD) systems using single-mode fiber. We review known direct-detection OFDM techniques, including asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM), DC-clipped OFDM (DC-OFDM) and single-sideband OFDM (SSB-OFDM), and derive a linearized channel model for each technique. We present an iterative procedure to achieve optimum power allocation for each OFDM technique, since there is no closed-form solution for amplified DD systems. For each technique, we minimize the optical power required to transmit at a given bit rate and normalized GVD by iteratively adjusting the bias and optimizing the power allocation among the subcarriers. We verify that SSB-OFDM has the best optical power efficiency among the different OFDM techniques. We compare these OFDM techniques to on-off keying (OOK) with maximum-likelihood sequence detection (MLSD) and show that SSB-OFDM can achieve the same optical power efficiency as OOK with MLSD, but at the cost of requiring twice the electrical bandwidth and also a complex quadrature modulator. We compare the computational complexity of the different techniques and show that SSB-OFDM requires fewer operations per bit than OOK with MLSD. In LANs, we compare the performance of several OFDM schemes to that of OOK in combating modal dispersion in multimode fiber links. We review known OFDM techniques using intensity modulation with direct detection (IM/DD), including DC-OFDM, ACO-OFDM and pulse-amplitude modulated discrete multitone (PAM-DMT). We describe an iterative procedure to achieve optimal power allocation for DC-OFDM, and compare analytically the performance of ACO-OFDM and PAM-DMT. We also consider unipolar M-ary pulse-amplitude modulation (M-PAM) with minimum mean-square error decision-feedback equalization (MMSE-DFE). For each technique, we quantify the optical power required to transmit at a given bit rate in a variety of multimode fibers. For a given symbol rate, we find that unipolar M-PAM with MMSE-DFE has a better power performance than all OFDM formats. Furthermore, we observe that the difference in performance between M-PAM and OFDM increases as the spectral efficiency increases. We also find that at a spectral efficiency of 1 bit/symbol, OOK performs better than ACO-OFDM using a symbol rate twice that of OOK. At higher spectral efficiencies, M-PAM performs only slightly better than ACO-OFDM using twice the symbol rate, but requires less electrical bandwidth and can employ analog-to-digital converters at a speed only 81% of that required for ACO-OFDM. In PANs, we evaluate the performance of the three IM/DD OFDM schemes in combating multipath distortion in indoor optical wireless links, comparing them to unipolar M-PAM with MMSE-DFE. For each modulation method, we quantify the received electrical SNR required at a given bit rate on a given channel, considering an ensemble of 170 indoor wireless channels. When using the same symbol rate for all modulation methods, M-PAM with MMSE-DFE has better performance than any OFDM format over a range of spectral efficiencies, with the advantage of M-PAM increasing at high spectral efficiency. ACO-OFDM and PAM-DMT have practically identical performance at any spectral efficiency. They are the best OFDM formats at low spectral efficiency, whereas DC-OFDM is best at high spectral efficiency. When ACO-OFDM or PAM-DMT are allowed to use twice the symbol rate of M-PAM, these OFDM formats have better performance than M-PAM. When channel state information is unavailable at the transmitter, however, M-PAM significantly outperforms all OFDM formats. When using the same symbol rate for all modulation methods, M-PAM requires approximately three times more computational complexity per processor than all OFDM formats and 63% faster analog-to-digital converters, assuming oversampling ratios of 1.23 and 2 for ACO-OFDM and M-PAM, respectively. When OFDM uses twice the symbol rate of M-PAM, OFDM requires 23% faster analog-to-digital converters than M-PAM but OFDM requires approximately 40% less computational complexity than M-PAM per processor.

Optical fiber communication has emerged as a high potential substitute for communication methods such as twisted pair and coaxial wire. The main advantage of optical fiber over previous methods is to have higher capacity of data rate transmission. The conventional types of modulation and demodulation technique, which have been used through optical fiber communication system are Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technique and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) technique so far.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) systems are widely used in the standards for digital audio/video broadcasting, WiFi and WiMax. Being a frequency-domain approach to communications, OFDM has important advantages in dealing with the frequency-selective nature of high data rate wireless communication channels. As the needs for operating with higher data rates become more pressing, OFDM systems have emerged as an effective physical-layer solution. This short monograph is intended as a tutorial which highlights the deleterious aspects of the wireless channel and presents why OFDM is a good choice as a modulation that can transmit at high data rates. The system-level approach we shall pursue will also point out the disadvantages of OFDM systems especially in the context of peak to average ratio, and carrier frequency synchronization. Finally, simulation of OFDM systems will be given due prominence. Simple MATLAB programs are provided for bit error rate simulation using a discrete-time OFDM representation. Software is also provided to simulate the effects of inter-block-interference, inter-carrier-interference and signal clipping on the error rate performance. Different components of the OFDM system are described, and detailed implementation notes are provided for the programs. The program can be downloaded here. Table of Contents: Introduction / Modeling Wireless Channels / Baseband OFDM System / Carrier Frequency Offset / Peak to Average Power Ratio / Simulation of the Performance of OFDM Systems / Conclusions

Optical communication systems carry the bulk of all data traffic worldwide. This book introduces multi-Terabit/s transmission systems and three key technologies for next generation networks. A software-defined multi-format transmitter, an optical comb source and an optical processing scheme for the fast Fourier transform for Tbit/s signals. Three world records demonstrate the potential: The first single laser 10 Tbit/s and 26 Tbit/s OFDM and the first 32.5 Tbit/s Nyquist WDM experiments.

This book provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the art of optical signal processing technologies and devices. It presents breakthrough solutions for enabling a pervasive use of optics in data communication and signal storage applications. It presents presents optical signal processing as solution to overcome the capacity crunch in communication networks. The book content ranges from the development of innovative materials and devices, such as graphene and slow light structures, to the use of nonlinear optics for secure quantum information processing and overcoming the classical Shannon limit on channel capacity and microwave signal processing. Although it holds the promise for a substantial speed improvement, today’s communication infrastructure optics remains largely confined to the signal transport layer, as it lags behind electronics as far as signal processing is concerned. This situation will change in the near future as the tremendous growth of data traffic requires energy efficient and fully transparent all-optical networks. The book is written by leaders in the field.