title: REAM intensity modulator-enabled 10Gb/s colorless upstream transmission of real-time optical OFDM signals in a single-fiber-based bidirectional PON architecture.
abstract: Reflective electro-absorption modulation-intensity modulators (REAM-IMs) are utilized, for the first time, to experimentally demonstrate colorless ONUs in single-fiber-based, bidirectional, intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IMDD), optical OFDM PONs (OOFDM-PONs) incorporating 25 km SSMFs and OLT-side-seeded CW optical signals. The colorlessness of the REAM-IMs is characterized, based on which optimum REAM-IM operating conditions are identified. In the aforementioned PON architecture, 10Gb/s colorless upstream transmissions of end-to-end real-time OOFDM signals are successfully achieved for various wavelengths within the entire C-band. Over such a wavelength window, corresponding minimum received optical powers at the FEC limit vary in a range as small as <0.5 dB. In addition, experimental measurements also indicate that Rayleigh backscattering imposes a 2.8 dB optical power penalty on the 10 Gb/s over 25 km upstream OOFDM signal transmission. Furthermore, making use of on-line adaptive bit and power loading, a linear trade-off between aggregated signal line rate and optical power budget is observed, which shows that, for the present PON system, a 10% reduction in signal line rate can improve the optical power budget by 2.6 dB.
authors.affiliation: School of Electronic Engineering, Bangor University, Dean Street, Bangor, LL57 1UT, UK. e.hugues-salas@bangor.ac.uk
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hugues-Salas
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Giddings
authors.forename: X Q
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Quinlan
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tang