Direct Detection Systems Research Articles

Planning tools for next-generation DSP-based passive optical networks above 50G [Invited Tutorial

Next-generation optical access networks are evolving towards ultra-high bit rates (above 50 Gbps per wavelength) and extended fiber reach architectures. This trend will likely push the optoelectronics to their limits, thus requiring impairment compensation based on digital signal processing (DSP) techniques in the transceivers. In this paper, which is an invited follow-up of a tutorial given at ECOC 2023, we first present an overview of this evolving scenario and then propose a unified analytical model that is able to predict the performance of these new systems for both direct-detection and coherent transceiver types. We believe that this model can be useful for preliminary scalability studies of new access architectures (as it happens in international standardization bodies). Moreover, when they are deployed, it can be useful as a base for network planning tools, particularly if future transceivers will be, as expected, highly reconfigurable at the DSP level.

Extending the coverage of user-diversified IM-DD PON by FDM: a mathematical model with experimental verification.

Future passive optical networks (PONs) call for more flexibility to support diversified users with various rate demands and link qualities. Using traditional time-division multiplexing (TDM), the concept of a flexible rate PON was proposed to accommodate more users with link diversity by rate adaptation. In this Letter, we reveal the PON coverage can be further extended through frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) in the presence of multiuser diversity, namely, (i) there exist users with frequency-dependent link conditions and (ii) the link conditions exhibit disparity among users. We build a mathematical model and propose an optimization algorithm based on the binary tree search to optimize diversity gain. We experimentally verify its feasibility by studying the diversity gain concerning chromatic dispersion, optical path loss, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) variation in a 200G-class intensity-modulation direct-detection (IM-DD) system.

Dual high-order QAM-modulated mm-wave signal transmission in the Q-band enabled by simple IM/DD architecture and bandpass delta-sigma modulation.

The intensity-modulation (IM)/direct-detection (DD) systems have been proven effective and low-cost due to their simple system architecture. However, the Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) of the IM/DD systems only reserves its driving signal intensity. Therefore, the IM/DD systems are generally unable to transmit vector signals and have a restricted spectrum efficiency and channel capacity. Similarly, the radio-over-fiber (RoF) transmission systems based on IM/DD are limited by their simple architecture and generally cannot transmit high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals, which hinders the improvement of their spectrum efficiency. To address the challenges, we propose a novel, to the best of our knowledge, scheme to simultaneously transmit the dual independent high-order QAM-modulated millimeter-wave (mm-wave) signals in the RoF system with a simple IM/DD architecture, enabled by precoding-based optical carrier suppression (OCS) modulation and bandpass delta-sigma modulation (BP-DSM). The dual independent signals can carry different information, which increases channel capacity and improves spectrum efficiency and system flexibility. Based on our proposed scheme, we experimentally demonstrate the dual 512-QAM mm-wave signal transmission in the Q-band (33-50 GHz) under three different scenarios: 1) dual single-carrier (SC) signal transmission, 2) dual orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) signal transmission, and 3) hybrid SC and OFDM signal transmission. We achieve high-fidelity transmission of dual 512-QAM vector signals over a 5 km single-mode fiber (SMF) and a 1-m single-input single-output (SISO) wireless link operating in the Q-band, with the bit error rates (BERs) of all three scenarios below the hard decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold of 3.8 × 10-3. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time dual high-order QAM-modulated mm-wave signal transmission has been achieved in a RoF system with a simple IM/DD architecture.

Demonstration of IM/DD 3-Tbit/s PS-PAM8 transmission with wavelength and mode multiplexing based on neural network equalizer

We experimentally demonstrate 8-channel wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) signal transmission in 4 modes over 20-m multimode fiber (MMF) in an intensity modulation and direct-detection (IM/DD) system. By combining the probabilistic shaping (PS) technique with high order pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) format, 40-GBaud PS-PAM8 signal transmission in the WDM + MDM IM/DD system achieves a total net bit rate of 3-Tbit/s. With the aid of a multiple input single output (MISO) neural network (NN) equalizer, we obtain a 1.6-dB receiver sensitivity gain compared with traditional digital signal processing (DSP), including multiple input multiple outputs (MIMO) time domain equalizer (TDE).

High spectral efficiency modulation scheme based on joint interaction of orthogonal compressed chirp division multiplexing and power superimposed code.

In this paper, we propose a high spectral efficiency modulation scheme based on joint interaction of orthogonal compressed chirp division multiplexing (OCCDM) and power superimposed code (PSC) under the intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) system. OCCDM is a novel orthogonal chirp division multiplexing technology featuring spectral compression through the implementation of processing similar to a discrete Fourier transform, enhancing the spectral efficiency (SE) through bandwidth savings without loss of orthogonality of each chirp. Meanwhile, PSC technology enables multiple code words being transmitted superimposed on the same chirp. This technique involves allocating varying power levels to different users, thereby distinguishing them, increasing the transmission's net bit rate and substantially boosting the SE. The transmission has been performed experimentally using a 2 km 7-core fiber span. The impact of the above-mentioned technologies on the bit error rate (BER) performance is assessed in the power, frequency, and joint domain. The BER and enhancements in the SE can be balanced when the spectral bandwidth compression factor (α) and power distribution ratio are equal to 0.9 and 4, respectively. The observed outcome leads to the transmission's SE increase to more than double the baseline value, at 2.22 times. Based on the above analysis, we believe this structure is expected to become a potential for developing next-generation PON.

Low-complexity and low-latency equalization technique - probabilistic noise cancellation.

Both inside data centers (DCs) and in short optical links between data centers (DC campuses), intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IMDD) systems using four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) will dominate this decade due to low transceiver price and power consumption. The next DC transceiver generation based on 100 Gbaud PAM4 will require advanced digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms and more powerful forward error correction (FEC) codes. Because of bandwidth limitations, the conventional DC DSP based on a few-tap linear feed-forward equalizer (FFE) is likely to be upgraded to more complex but still low-complexity Volterra equalizers followed by a noise whitening filter and either a maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) or a maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) algorithm. However, stringent power consumption and latency requirements may limit the use of complex algorithms such as decision feedback equalizer (DFE) or MLSE/MAP in DC networks (DCN). In this paper, we introduce a low-complexity, low-latency algorithm based on a feedforward structure, yielding a performance between DFE and MLSE. We call the novel equalization algorithm probabilistic noise cancellation (PNC), since it weights noise patterns based on their probabilities in the presence of bandwidth limitations. The probabilistic weighting is efficiently exploited in correcting correlated errors caused by noise coloring in the FFE.

Design and numerical-phase analysis of an SPR system for direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus in pharyngeal swab solution

An ultrasensitive differential-phase SPR biosensor has been successfully established, capable of direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Bayesian generative adversarial network emulator based end-to-end learning strategy of the probabilistic shaping for OAM mode division multiplexing IM/DD transmission.

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode division multiplexing (MDM) has emerged as a new multiplexing technology that can significantly increase transmission capacity. In addition, probabilistic shaping (PS) is a well-established technique that can increase the transmission capacity of an optical fiber to close to the Shannon limit. However, both the mode coupling and the nonlinear impairment lead to a considerable gap between the OAM-MDM channel and the conventional additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel, meaning that existing PS technology is not suitable for an OAM-MDM intensity-modulation direct-detection (IM-DD) system. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian generative adversarial network (BGAN) emulator based on an end-to-end (E2E) learning strategy with probabilistic shaping (PS) for an OAM-MDM IM/DD transmission with two modes. The weights and biases of the BGAN emulator are treated as a probability distribution, which can be accurately matched to the stochastic nonlinear model of OAM-MDM. Furthermore, a BGAN emulator based on an E2E learning strategy is proposed to find the optimal probability distribution of PS for an OAM-MDM IM/DD system. An experiment was conducted on a 200 Gbit/s two OAM modes carrierless amplitude phase-32(CAP-32) signal over a 5 km ring-core fiber transmission, and the results showed that the proposed BGAN emulator outperformed a conventional CGAN emulator, with improvements in modelling accuracy of 29.3% and 26.3% for the two OAM modes, respectively. Moreover, the generalized mutual information (GMI) of the proposed E2E learning strategy outperformed the conventional MB distribution and the CGAN emulator by 0.31 and 0.33 bits/symbol and 0.16 and 0.2 bits/symbol for the two OAM modes, respectively. Our experimental results demonstrate that the proposed E2E learning strategy with the BGAN emulator is a promising candidate for OAM-MDM IM/DD optic fiber communication.

Orthogonal Circulant Multiplexing for Bandwidth- Limited Direct-Detected Optical Communication Systems

We propose and investigate a novel orthogonal circulant multiplexing (OCM) technology for bandwidth-limited direct detection (DD) optical systems. We analytically derive that any OCM, i.e. using any orthogonal circulant matrix for multiplexing, can redistribute the noise uniformly across the subcarriers. However, the distribution of inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-carrier interference (ICI) strongly depends on the design of OCM. The previously proposed orthogonal chirp division multiplexing (OCDM), although showing better ISI/ICI tolerance than discrete-Fourier-transform spread (DFT-S) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), is a kind of OCM with poorer performance. We propose and analytically reveal that OCM based on chirp-like polyphase sequence (CLPS), general chirp sequence (GCS), sparse CLPS (SCLPS), and sparse GCS (SGCS) can achieve flatter ISI/ICI distribution across subcarriers and so better performance than OCDM in bandwidth-limited DD systems. The optimal parameter vector of the E-parameter CLPS is a Zadoff-Chu sequence while the parameter α in GCS should be larger. The optimal performance can be achieved by either CLPS (or GCS) using a larger E (or α) or SCLPS (or SGCS) with optimized sparsity. ∼110Gbit/s experiments using Mach-Zehnder modulator or electro-absorption modulator and receiver of 10-GHz photodiode or 8-GHz avalanche photodiode are conducted. The results agree with the theory and show that the proposed OCM outperforms conventional OFDM, DFT-S OFDM, and OCDM.

Enhancing the performance of 16384QAM based on delta-sigma modulation using geometric shaping in an IMDD system.

In this Letter, a new, to the best of our knowledge, geometric shaping method for an ultrahigh-order 16384-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16384QAM) constellation based on the delta-sigma modulation technique is proposed. Based on the characteristics of delta-sigma modulation, the constellation was optimized to obtain greater constellation gain and improve the maximum performance of the system. Finally, the proposed scheme was demonstrated on an intensity-modulated direct detection (IMDD) system through a 25 km single-mode fiber transmission. On performing experiments, it was found that the suggested approach increases the receiver sensitivity of ultrahigh-order QAM communication systems based on delta-sigma modulation by around 0.5 dB and further enhances the error performance limit.

Fast polarization state tracking for dual-polarization direct detection with Jones-space field recovery.

Direct detection system is expected to possess the phase and polarization diversity in order to achieve high spectral efficiency and fiber impairment compensation such as chromatic dispersion and polarization rotation. In this Letter, we theoretically extend the concept of the proposed Jones-space field recovery (JSFR) to include a dynamic polarization rotation matrix and experimentally demonstrate the rapid polarization state tracking ability of the JSFR receiver based on a 3 × 3 optical coupler. Under a rotation of the state of polarization at a rate of 1 Mrad/s, we successfully transmit 59-GBd dual-polarization 16-ary quadrature-amplitude-modulation signals over an 80-km standard single-mode fiber based on a decision-directed least mean square (DD-LMS) or a recursive least square (DD-RLS), with a bit-error rate below the 14% hard-decision forward error correction threshold of 1 × 10-2. The experimental results indicate that the legacy polarization tracking algorithms designed for coherent optical communication are also applicable for this direct detection scheme. To our best knowledge, this work demonstrates the first polarization rotation-tolerant direct detection system with phase and polarization diversity, providing a low-cost and high-speed solution for short-reach communications.

Direct detection system for independent triplet-sideband signals based on a single photodiode.

This paper proposes a novel, to the best of our knowledge, independent triplet-single-sideband (triplet-SSB) transmission system scheme aimed at increasing channel capacity and improving spectrum efficiency. The conventional independent multiband transmission systems are limited by their complexity and high computational requirements, which hinder the improvement of spectrum efficiency and channel capacity. To address these challenges, this scheme uses three independent signals, modulated by an in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) modulator, and transmits them over a 5-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). At the receiver end, a single photodiode (PD) is used for signal reception, and the signals are separated using digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. Through simulation and verification, the feasibility and reliability of the system are demonstrated, with the bit error rates (BERs) of all three signals below the hard decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold value of 3.8 × 10-3. This independent triplet-SSB transmission system scheme effectively improves spectrum efficiency and channel capacity, providing a valuable solution for meeting the growing demands of data transmission.

Deep-Learning-Enabled Direct Detection With Reduced Computational Complexity and High Electrical-Spectral-Efficiency

Complex-valued double-sideband (CV-DSB) direct detection (DD) is a promising solution for high capacity and cost-sensitive data center interconnects, since it can reconstruct the optical field as a homodyne coherent receiver while does not require a costly local oscillator laser. In a carrier-assisted CV-DSB DD system, the carrier occupies a large proportion of the total optical signal power but bears no information. Reducing the carrier to signal power ratio (CSPR) can improve the information-bearing signal power and thus maximize the achievable system performance. Recently, we have proposed and demonstrated a deep-learning-enabled DD (DLEDD) scheme to reconstruct the full-field of the CV-DSB signal. In the DLEDD scheme, the optical CV-DSB signal was detected by a dispersion-diversity receiver and then recovered by a deep convolutional neural network (CNN). Nevertheless, the computational complexity of the deep CNN is the main obstacle to the application of the DLEDD scheme. In this paper, we demonstrate a 50-GBaud CV-DSB 32-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (32-QAM) signal transmission over 80-km single-mode fiber with ∼64% computational-budget reduction in the field reconstruction. This is achieved by using 1×1 convolutions to attain a sparse dimensionality (in particular the number of channels) of the deep CNN. To the best of our knowledge, we achieve the highest electrical spectral efficiency of 7.07 b/s/Hz per polarization per wavelength for a CV-DSB DD receiver without requiring a sharp-roll-off optical filter.

FPGA implementation for 44.2368-Gbit/s PAM8 signal transmission with pruned pre-equalization.

In this experiment, we demonstrated an intensity modulation and direct-detection (IM/DD) system based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The PAM8 signals are successfully delivered at 44.2368 Gbit/s over a 45-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF), satisfying the soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) criterion of 2.4 × 10-2, and the net bit rate may reach 36.864 Gbit/s without the need of optical amplifiers. At the transmitter, we used a pruned pre-equalization algorithm to process the PAM8 signals, and the high-speed parallel PAM8 signals were processed at the receiver using 64 parallel constant modulus algorithm (CMA) and decision-directed least mean square (DD-LMS) equalizers. Additionally, we analyzed the bit error rate (BER) performance of the DD-LMS equalizer in FPGA simulation with various data lengths, both before and after equalization.

Probabilistic Shaping for High-Speed Unamplified IM/DD Systems With an O-Band EML

Probabilistic constellation shaping has been used in long-haul optically amplified coherent systems for its capability to approach the Shannon limit and realize fine rate granularity. The availability of high-bandwidth optical-electronic components and the previously mentioned advantages have invigorated researchers to explore probabilistic shaping (PS) in intensity-modulation and direct-detection (IM/DD) systems. This article presents an extensive comparison of uniform 8-ary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) with PS PAM-8 using cap and cup Maxwell-Boltzmann (MB) distributions as well as MB distributions of different Gaussian orders. We report that in the presence of linear equalization, PS-PAM-8 outperforms uniform PAM-8 in terms of bit error ratio, achievable information rate and operational net bit rate indicating that cap-shaped PS-PAM-8 shows high tolerance against nonlinearities. In this paper, we have focused our investigations on O-band electro-absorption modulated laser unamplified IM/DD systems, which are operated close to the zero dispersion wavelength.

Noise analysis in direct detection and coherent detection phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry systems.

This study compares noise and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in direct detection and coherent detection fiber-based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) systems. Both detection schemes employ the dynamic analysis of Rayleigh-backscattered light in phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (ΦOTDR) systems. Through theoretical and experimental analysis, it is determined that for photodetection filters with a sufficiently narrow bandwidth, the SNR performance of both detection schemes is comparable. However, for filters with poor selectivity, coherent detection was found to exhibit superior performance. These findings provide crucial guidelines for the design of high-performance time-domain DAS systems.

Suppressed Noise Enhancement Equalization Combined With Nonlinear-MLSE Techniques for Bandwidth-Limitation IM/DD System

Bandwidth limitation introduced inter-symbol interference (ISI) is the major impediment for high baud rate intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) system with commercial devices. Least mean square (LMS) criterion based feedforward equalizer (FFE) is the most common method to eliminate ISI in single-carrier system. However, there is a tradeoff between the residual ISI and enhanced noise when the system bandwidth is severely limited. Although a post filter (PF) followed by maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) can suppress the enhanced noise effectively, the residual ISI left by post-FFE will degrade the system performance as the subsequent MLSE only handles ISI introduced by PF. In this paper, an adaptive partial response equalization realized by a channel-shortening filter (CSF) is investigated, which is combined with MLSE. As the target of CSF is a partial response signal with desired low-pass feature, the noise will not be enhanced in this scheme. And the residual ISI with determined response can be fully solved by MLSE. The performance of CSF based MLSE (CSF-MLSE) is evaluated and compared to PF based MLSE (PF-MLSE) in 60/70/75Gbaud four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) system with 10-dB bandwidth of 16.2GHz. The experimental results show that CSF-MLSE has a better capability of ISI elimination compared to PF-MLSE. The bit error rate (BER) can be reduced from 7.4×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> to 4×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> and from 3×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-2</sup> to 1×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-2</sup> for 70Gbaud and 75Gbaud in optical back-to-back (OBTB) transmission. To further compensate the system nonlinear impairments, several nonlinear MLSE (NL-MLSE) techniques assisted by look-up table (LUT) or Volterra filter are proposed and investigated in this paper. The BER of 75Gbuad PAM-4 can be below 3×10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> after using NL-MLSE schemes.

Direct detection system based on a single photodiode receiving the independent quadruple-SSB signal.

We propose and verify a direct detection (DD) system based on a single photodiode (PD) receiving the independent quadruple-single-sideband (quadruple-SSB) signal. At the transmitter side, an I/Q modulator is utilized to modulate the independent quadruple-SSB signal, the signal is received via one PD without optical bandpass filters (OBPFs). Then, the independent quadruple-SSB signal is separated into four sideband signals by subsequent digital signal processing (DSP). In the scheme of back-to-back (BTB), 1-km and 5-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission, the four sideband signals are extensively studied and analyzed. The simulation results show that the bit error rate (BER) of 1Gbaud, 2Gbaud and 4Gbaud independent quadruple-SSB signal can reach the 7% hard-decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold of 3.8 × 10-3 when the received optical power (ROP) is -21, -20 and -17.2 dBm in 5-km SSMF transmission. Meanwhile, as the frequency interval gets wider, the crosstalk in the sideband signal reception can be mitigated and the BER decreases. This scheme for the first time demonstrates that the independent quadruple-SSB signal can further expand the system transmission capacity and enhance the spectrum efficiency. Our simplified independent quadruple-SSB signal direct detection system has a simple structure and high spectral efficiency, which will have a promising future in high-speed optical communication.

Adaptive bias layered optical OFDM based on precoding for IM/DD systems

An adaptive bias layered optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ABLO-OFDM) scheme based on real-valued precoding is proposed in the intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) system. In ABLO-OFDM scheme, multilayer subcarriers are used to transmit data, which can achieve high spectral efficiency (SE) and reduce the peak average power ratio (PAPR). Compared with layered asymmetrically clipped O-OFDM (LACO-OFDM) scheme, only one inverse Fast Fourier transform (IFFT) block is needed in ABLO-OFDM. At the same time, the signal can be demodulated directly using the standard OFDM receiver. In addition, to resist the selective fading effect of the system, low-complexity real-valued precoding, namely discrete cosine transform (DCT) and discrete Hartley transform (DHT), are used to effectively balance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between subcarriers and further reduce the PAPR. The result shows that the PAPR of the ABLO-OFDM system is reduced by 2.7 dB after adaptive bias layering, and the PAPR is further reduced by 2.4 dB at most after precoding. For the layered ABLO-OFDM system with DCT precoding, as the number of subcarrier layers decreases from L = 8 to L = 1, the required receiver optical power (ROP) is reduced by 6 dB. It proves that the ABLO-OFDM system with DCT precoding can achieve higher SE and effectively improve receiver sensitivity.

Support 16384QAM mobile fronthaul based on 3 amplitude quantization Delta-Sigma Modulation

We experimentally demonstrated 16384-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16384QAM) mobile fronthaul based on 3-amplitude quantization high-pass Delta-sigma Modulation (DSM) in the O band intensity-modulated direct detection (IM/DD) system. By using 3-amplitude quantized high-pass DSM, we successfully quantize the analog waveform of intermediate frequency (IF) Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal into 3-Level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM3) signal, and 1 GHz bandwidth 16384-QAM and 1024QAM are successful transmission in 20Gb/s IM/DD link. 0.63% Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) of 16384QAM and 0.7% EVM of 2048QAM are achieved after 25km SSMF and 50km SSMF transmission, respectively. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the retrieved OFDM signal is 43 dB, which shows that the proposed scheme can support 16384QAM mobile fronthaul network.