IM/DD WDM-PON Communication System Based on Optical Frequency Comb Generated in Silica Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator

Sandis Spolitis,Rihards Murnieks,Elena A Anashkina,Toms Salgals,Alexey V Andrianov,Gerd Leuchs,Maria P Marisova,Vjaceslavs Bobrovs,Laura Skladova

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3076411

Abstract

This article reports an implementation of a microsphere-based optical frequency comb (OFC) generator for substitution of individual laser arrays and simulates wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) based on this OFC generator. Our proposed generator is built based on silica microsphere, barely studied for fiber optical communication systems, and is a promising solution with photonic integration capability. Kerr OFC as a multiple light source containing more than 20 spectral carriers in the fundamental mode family in the C-band and beyond is demonstrated experimentally. Four of these OFC generator carriers with the highest peak power are studied in simulated 4-channel 393 GHz spaced WDM-PON. Additionally, we show this OFC as a source of optical carriers capable of providing data transmission over most utilized fiber types in modern optical communication systems, namely, single-mode fiber (SMF), non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber (NZ-DSF), and cut-off shifted fiber (CSF). We show through the simulations that error-free data transmission is possible, providing a total transmission capacity of 40 Gbit/s by using four OFC generated carriers.

Highlights

Optical frequency combs (OFC) are evenly spaced, narrow, and phase-locked sets of frequency lines
The paper investigates fabricated optical frequency comb (OFC) generator based on silica microsphere whispering gallery mode resonator to provide optical carriers for data modulation and transmission over the wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-passive optical network (PON)) network
We attain a Kerr OFC in the C-band and beyond in the regime of the small absolute value of the dispersion across the whole spectrum whereas the whispering gallery mode resonator (WGMR) was pumped at a wavelength of 1558 nm, corresponding to a slightly anomalous dispersion of the produced sample

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Optical frequency combs (OFC) are evenly spaced, narrow, and phase-locked sets of frequency lines. OFC APPLICATION IN OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AS LIGHT SOURCE When Kerr OFCs based on whispering gallery mode resonator (WGMR-OFC) are integrated into WDM-PON optical communication systems instead of individual laser arrays in the central office (CO) massive potentials emerge. It is beneficial considering the next-generation PON standards – 10-Gigabit-capable symmetric passive optical networks (XGS-PON) and NG-PON2 [38], [39]), where lower expenses in terms of energy and spectral efficiency are the main goals. We can expect that the obtained BER values and eye diagrams will show better results for NZ-DSF and SMF fibers for particular fiber distances, considering that the variation of attenuation and nonlinear coefficient of these fibers is minor

STRUCTURE OF SIMULATION SCHEME WITH INTEGRATED WGMR-OFC SOURCE

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION