30.7 Tb/s Transmission over 400 km using 40 WDM channels of DP-16 QAM and Raman amplification without inline repeaters

Abstract

Forty wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) channels of 96 Gbaud (768 Gb/s) were transmitted over 400 km of SMF using only a Raman amplifier, which was accomplished through numerical simulations. Each WDM channel comprised eight electrical subcarriers of single sideband Nyquist-pulse-shaping. 16 quadrature amplitude modulation and dual polarization modulation were applied to each subcarrier channel and so one data symbol carried eight bits. The roll-off factor in the optical subcarrier spectrum was investigated from 2% to 11%, and the change in roll-off was analyzed according to the subcarrier channel in a single WDM channel. The spectral linewidth of the light source in the transmitter was changed up to 10 MHz, and the effect on the performance was examined for a coherent transmission system with constellation analysis. The optical input power per WDM channel was optimized and the wavelength spacing between WDM channels were analyzed using nonlinear effects from adjacent WDM channels. A transmission experiment for total 30.7 Tb/s over 400 km was performed using the obtained optimal values. BER evaluation was achieved by DSP algorithms including Kramers–Kronig detection and Nyquist filtering. All 40 WDM channels exhibited sufficient transmission performance using only the Raman backward pumping of the four pump wavelengths. The proposed system can be applied to unrepeatered metro‐networks or data-center interconnects.