A structure-simplified and cost-effective coherent receiver for high splitting downstream transmission in next-generation PONs

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we demonstrate a structure-simplified and cost-effective coherent receiver scheme for high splitting downstream transmission in next generation passive optical networks (NG-PONs). In such scheme, the simple 3dB coupler is used to replace 9 0 0 optical hybrid and the electrical local oscillator (LO) is utilized to down-convert signal, and there by only one balanced photodiode (BPD) is required for each polarization. Hence the cost is reduced effectively for the high splitting PON downstream transmission scenario. The comprehensive numerical simulation results show that the receiver sensitivity for both 14G Baud PM-QPSK and PM-16QAM system is comparable to that of the conventional coherent receiver using 9 0 0 hybrid. Furthermore, the effect of fiber nonlinearity on maximum power budget performance is investigated. In addition, the high receiver sensitivity of the scheme is also experimentally validated for PM-QPSK and PM-16QAM system under the scenario of 14G Baud BtB, 20km and 40km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission. The coexistent advantages of low-cost and high receiver sensitivity make the proposed scheme an attractive candidate for NG-PONs.