Pre-amplified Receiver Research Articles

Ultralow-noise preamplified optical receiver using conventional single-wavelength transmission

Conventional optical amplifiers that use stimulated emission suffer from the generation of excess noise, thus limiting the performance in many applications. The phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier, relying on the use of a nonlinear material for amplification, is an exception that can approach a noise figure of 0 dB. Its implementation in optical communication links has, however, been cumbersome due to increased complexity both in the transmitter and the receiver, effectively limiting the use of such amplifiers in practice. Here, we propose and demonstrate an implementation of a transmission system with exceptional performance in terms of receiver sensitivity (0.9 photons per bit) using a standalone ultralow-noise phase-sensitively preamplified receiver and a conventional single-wave optical transmitter. This is a significant simplification compared to previous demonstrations and can transform such amplifiers from a curiosity to practical use for example in deep-space-to-earth communication links.

Designing high-speed GEO-to-Moon optical wireless communication links

Moon exploration and colonization will strongly rely upon high-speed optical wireless communications over a huge distance (around 400,000 km). Here, we introduce a holistic model, including the propagation issues as well as the realistic communication limitations and the expected practical limitations. We focus on the communication issues in a link connecting a GEO satellite to a fixed Moon optical station: here, we consider the challenging 10 Gbit/s transmission rate, and we assume an optical pre-amplified receiver, which is today the only option for high speed; we then select three different modulation formats, with corresponding implementations and increasing complexity and performance. Under these assumptions, we estimate the common operating conditions at the forward error correction threshold and point out the role of the transmitter and receiver telescopes: for practical size (e.g., 1 m), relevant limitations arise, which we combine with the typical photons-per-bit sensitivity values in an optical link. We find that all considered modulation formats can be used at 10 Gbit/s, although with different margins and hardware requirements, particularly considering the size of the optical antennas. We then extend the analysis to higher rates, up to 40 Gbit/s. This work can open the way to the realization of optical wireless communication systems to/from the future Moon Village.

Level Allocation of Four-Level Pulse-Amplitude Modulation Signal in Optically Pre-Amplified Receiver Systems

Level Allocation of Four-Level Pulse-Amplitude Modulation Signal in Optically Pre-Amplified Receiver Systems

High Dynamic Range 100G PON Enabled by SOA Preamplifier and Recurrent Neural Networks

In recent years the PON research community has focused on future systems targeting 100 Gb/s/ <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda$</tex-math></inline-formula> and beyond, with digital signal processing seen as a key enabling technology. Spectrally efficient 4-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) is seen as a cost-effective solution that exploits the ready availability of cheaper, low-bandwidth devices, and Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers (SOA) are being investigated as receiver preamplifiers to compensate PAM4's high signal-to-noise ratio requirements and meet the demanding 29 dB PON loss budget. However, SOA gain saturation-induced patterning distortion is a concern in the context of PON burst-mode signalling, and the 19.5 dB loud-soft packet dynamic range expected by the most recent ITU-T 50G standards. In this paper we propose a recurrent neural network equalisation technique based on gated recurrent units (GRU-RNN) to not only mitigate SOA patterning affecting loud packet bursts, but to also exploit their remarkable effectiveness at compensating non-linear impairments to unlock the SOA gain saturated regime. Using such an equaliser we demonstrate <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ &gt; 28$</tex-math></inline-formula> dB system dynamic range in 100 Gb/s PAM4 system by using SOA gain compression in conjunction with GRU-RNN equalisation. We find that our proposed GRU-RNN has similar equalisation capabilities as non-linear Volterra, fully connected neural network, and long short-term memory based equalisers, but observe that feedback-based RNN equalisers are more suited to the varying levels of impairment inherent to PON burst-mode signalling due to their low input tap requirements. Recognising issues surrounding hardware implementation of RNNs, we investigate a multi-symbol equalisation scheme to lower the feedback latency requirements of our proposed GRU-RNN. Finally, we compare equaliser complexities and performances according to trainable parameters and real valued multiplication operations, finding that the proposed GRU-RNN equaliser is more efficient than those based on Volterra, fully connected neural networks or long short-term memory units proposed elsewhere.

Improving the sensitivity and bandwidth of time-of-flight scanning LIDAR using few-mode preamplified receivers

Improving the sensitivity and bandwidth of time-of-flight scanning LIDAR using few-mode preamplified receivers

Pilot-Tone-Assisted Stimulated-Brillouin-Scattering-Based Optical Carrier Recovery for Kramers-Kronig Reception

Optical carrier recovery provides a method to increase the carrier-to-signal power ratio at the receiver side of an optical communications system. Here, we propose to use optical carrier recovery based on stimulated Brillouin scattering to help overcome performance limits of Kramers-Kronig direct detection systems that arise due to the need for a high carrier-to-signal power ratio. By transmitting a low power pilot tone along with the signal, we simplify the stimulated Brillouin scattering based optical carrier recovery subsystem, toward better compatibility with the technology demands of short-reach systems. Experimental results show that after 80 km standard single mode fibre transmission, an 8.8 dB required optical signal-to-noise ratio improvement is achieved by the proposed optical carrier recovery subsystem, when compared with the standard Kramers-Kronig direct detection system. Moreover, we measure a receiver sensitivity enhancement of more than 2.8 dB in an optically pre-amplified receiver. These results indicate the potential of the proposed optical carrier recovery subsystem to improve reach or power requirements for Kramers-Kronig direct detection systems.

Error rates of arbitrary order optical wireless pulse-position modulation: An efficient approach

We present analytical results on the bit-error probability (BEP) of arbitrary order pulse-position modulation (PPM) of optically pre-amplified receivers. We use the Laguerre photon counting distribution so as to model the statistic of the optical noise, in order to accurately model the effects of signal and spontaneous noise beating at the optical detector. The great advantage of our proposed results is that they are exact and only require a finite summation over the optical noise modes and the modulation order. In addition, this approach enables the efficient calculation of the BEP in optical wireless communication links, under the presence of atmospheric scintillations and pointing errors.

Power Efficient Communications Employing Phase Sensitive Pre-Amplified Receiver

The receiver sensitivity is a very important metric in optical communication links operating at low received signal powers. Phase sensitive optical amplifiers (PSAs) can amplify optical signals without excess noise, thus providing a fundamental sensitivity improvement of 3 dB when employed as a pre-amplifier compared to conventional erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA). In this letter, we investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the sensitivities achieved using power efficient multi-dimensional modulation formats such as M-ary pulse position modulation format (M-PPM) and M-PPM combined with quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) along with a near-noiseless PSA pre-amplified coherent intradyne receiver. We find that at high signal to noise ratios (SNRs) corresponding to low bit-error-rates (BER), M-PPM+QPSK results in the best sensitivity, which is improved with the order M, while at low SNRs corresponding to high BER (~14% where 100% overhead forward error correction codes (FEC) would be needed to recover the data), QPSK is the most sensitive format, while at the same time providing the best spectral efficiency. We report experimental sensitivities of 2.1 photons per information bit (PPB) at a pre-FEC BER = 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">−3</sup> using 64-PPM+QPSK and assuming 7% FEC, and 0.8 PPB at a pre-FEC BER = 0.14 using QPSK and assuming 100% FEC.

Simulation performance signature evolution of optical inter satellite links based booster EDFA and receiver preamplifiers

Abstract Aim and scope of this study is to simulate the performance signature of optical inter satellite links based booster Erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and receiver preamplifiers. The study is simulated to demonstrated the effect of changing the propagation distances between satellites spacing based on the booster EDFA and receiver preamplifiers. Signal power amplitude, Max. Q factor, and min bit error rate are investigated against the input power variations.

One photon-per-bit receiver using near-noiseless phase-sensitive amplification

Space communication for deep-space missions, inter-satellite data transfer and Earth monitoring requires high-speed data connectivity. The reach is fundamentally dictated by the available transmission power, the aperture size, and the receiver sensitivity. A transition from radio-frequency links to optical links is now seriously being considered, as this greatly reduces the channel loss caused by diffraction. A widely studied approach uses power-efficient formats along with nanowire-based photon-counting receivers cooled to a few Kelvins operating at speeds below 1 Gb/s. However, to achieve the multi-Gb/s data rates that will be required in the future, systems relying on pre-amplified receivers together with advanced signal generation and processing techniques from fibre communications are also considered. The sensitivity of such systems is largely determined by the noise figure (NF) of the pre-amplifier, which is theoretically 3 dB for almost all amplifiers. Phase-sensitive optical amplifiers (PSAs) with their uniquely low NF of 0 dB promise to provide the best possible sensitivity for Gb/s-rate long-haul free-space links. Here, we demonstrate a novel approach using a PSA-based receiver in a free-space transmission experiment with an unprecedented bit-error-free, black-box sensitivity of 1 photon-per-information-bit (PPB) at an information rate of 10.5 Gb/s. The system adopts a simple modulation format (quadrature-phase-shift keying, QPSK), standard digital signal processing for signal recovery and forward-error correction and is straightforwardly scalable to higher data rates.

Low Dark Current 1.55 Micrometer InAs Quantum Dash Waveguide Photodiodes

Photodiodes and integrated optical receivers operating at 1.55 micrometer (μm) wavelength are crucial for long-haul communication and data transfer systems. In this paper, we report C-band InAs quantum dash (Qdash) waveguide photodiodes (PDs) with a record-low dark current of 5 pA, a responsivity of 0.26 A/W at 1.55 μm, and open eye diagrams up to 10 Gb/s. These Qdash-based PDs leverage the same epitaxial layers and processing steps as Qdash lasers and can thus be integrated with laser sources for power monitors or amplifiers for preamplified receivers, manifesting themselves as a promising alternative to their InGaAs and Ge counterparts in low-power optical communication links.

Turbulence-Resistant FSO Communication Using a Few-Mode Pre-Amplified Receiver

Leveraging recent advances in space-division multiplexing, we propose and demonstrate turbulence-resistant free-space optical communication using few-mode (FM) pre-amplified receivers. The rationale for this approach is that a distorted wavefront can be decomposed into a superposition of the fundamental Gaussian mode and high-order modes of a few-mode fiber. We present the noise statistics and the sensitivity of the FM pre-amplified receiver, followed by experimental and numerical comparisons between FM pre-amplified receivers and single-mode (SM) pre-amplified receivers with or without adaptive optics. FM pre-amplified receivers for FSO can achieve high sensitivity, simplicity and reliability.

Design of Receiver Preamplifier with Bandwidth Adjustment Capabilities

Design of Receiver Preamplifier with Bandwidth Adjustment Capabilities

Single-Polarization, Optically Pre-Amplified Receiver With Gated, Burst-Mode Clock Recovery

We report a receiver using a single-polarization optical low-noise pre-amplifier and a burst-mode, time-gated clock recovery unit (CRU). Timing jitter and bit-error-ratio (BER) measurements are presented for data rates from 72 Mb/s to 2.880 Gb/s, both with and without atmospheric fading. At the lowest burst-mode data rate of 72 Mb/s, temporal gating improves the recovered clock’s timing jitter below receive power levels of −65 dBm, enabling comm-limited performance as opposed to CRU-limited performance. Gating extends the CRU and receiver range down to −88 dBm, a 3-dB sensitivity improvement over the non-gated case. For all data rates and channels measured, jitter values remain below 9 ps (3% of the clock period) with gating enabled. The BER performance is <2.5 dB from the theoretical limit across all data rates, both with and without atmospheric fading.

Monolithically integrated InAs/InGaAs quantum dot photodetectors on silicon substrates

We report InAs/InGaAs quantum dot (QD) waveguide photodetectors (PD) monolithically grown on silicon substrates. A high-crystalline quality GaAs-on-Si template was achieved by aspect ratio trapping together with the combined effects of cyclic thermal annealing and strain-balancing layer stacks. An ultra-low dark current of 0.8 nA and an internal responsivity of 0.9 A/W were measured in the O band. We also report, to the best of our knowledge, the first characterization of high-speed performance and the first demonstration of the on-chip photodetection for this QD-on-silicon system. The monolithically integrated waveguide PD shares the same platform as the previously demonstrated micro-ring lasers and can thus be integrated with laser sources for power monitors or amplifiers for pre-amplified receivers.

Saturation in cascaded optical amplifier free‐space optical communication systems

The performance of a free-space optical (FSO) communication system in a turbulent atmosphere employing an optical amplifier (OA) cascade to extend reach is investigated. Analysis of both single and cascaded OA FSO communication links is given and the implications of using both adaptive (to channel state) and non-adaptive decision threshold schemes are analysed. The benefits of amplifier saturation, for example in the form of effective scintillation reduction when a non-adaptive decision threshold scheme is utilised at the receiver for different atmospheric turbulence regimes, are presented. Monte Carlo simulation techniques are used to model the probability distributions of the optical signal power, noise and the average bit error rate due to scintillation for the cascade. The performance of an adaptive decision threshold is superior to a non-adaptive decision threshold for both saturated and fixed gain preamplified receivers and the ability of a saturated gain OA to suppress scintillation is only meaningful for system performance when a non-adaptive decision threshold is used at the receiver. An OA cascade can be successfully used to extend reach in FSO communication systems and specific system implementations are presented. The optimal cascade scheme with a non-adaptive receiver would use frequent low gain saturated amplification.

Preamplified Demodulation of 56-Gb/s WDM-DPSK Signals by an AWG-Based InP PIC

A compact preamplified receiver for wavelength division multiplexed-diffferential phase shift keying (WDM-DPSK) signals based on Gaussian filtering is proposed and simulated, and a first implementation, including an semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA) and an ad-hoc arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), is demonstrated by monolithical integration in an InP platform. The demodulation of 56-Gb/s channels on the eight 100-GHz-spaced AWG outputs is experimentally reported, and simulation results show the feasibility of multiwavelength operation obtaining simultaneous demultiplexing and demodulation of all the channels. The resilience to chromatic dispersion for the Gaussian filter demodulation is also shown by simulations.

Optimal Combiners in Pre-Amplified Optical Wireless Systems under Medium-to-Strong Atmospheric Turbulence

Abstract In this work we analytically investigate optimal combiners for pre-amplified diversity receivers that operate under medium-to-strong atmospheric turbulence. We first demonstrate that the combiner performance is strongly affected by the existence of a signal-amplified spontaneous emission beat noise at the output of the photodetector. Due to the signal-dependent nature of noise, the optimal combiner can be classified as a hybrid one, of which performance is between the well-known equal-gain and maximal-ratio combiner architectures. Having established the optimal design, we further assess the proposed combiner performance over gamma-gamma and negative-exponential fading environments.

100 Gb/s Intensity Modulation and Direct Detection

Recent advances in short reach 100 Gb/s intensity modulation and directed detection systems are briefly reviewed. As an illustrative example of using digital signal processing enabled transmitters and receivers to allow relatively modest symbol rates, the generation and detection of 112 Gb/s 16-QAM half-cycle Nyquist subcarrier modulation are considered using dual-polarization, single-carrier and single-polarization, dual-carrier implementations. High bandwidth directly modulated passive feedback lasers are used to generate the optical signals and pre-amplified receivers are used to detect the received signals in a back-to-back system and after transmission over 4 km of single-mode fiber.

Polarization-Insensitive Wavelength Conversion by FWM of 100-GHz-Spaced DWDM 4$\,\times\,$10 Gb/s RZ-BPSK Signals in a Birefringent Nonlinear AlGaAs Waveguide

Polarization-insensitive (PI) wavelength conversion of 100-GHz-spaced wavelength-division multiplexed 4 × 10 Gb/s return-to-zero binary phase-shift keyed (RZ-BPSK) signals was successfully demonstrated utilizing four-wave mixing for the first time in a passive, birefringent nonlinear AlGaAs waveguide. In addition to a pump launch angle adjustment, a minimum pump-probe detuning was also required to mitigate polarization-induced power fluctuations in the probe. The PI-wavelength-converted signals all demonstrated a pre-amplified receiver sensitivity penalty of less than ≈ 2 dB at 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-9</sup> bit-error-rate, relative to their respective baseline RZ-BPSK signals.