COL 10(11), 110602(2012) CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS November 10, 2012
Fiber nonlinearity compensation for CO-OFDM
transmission with 10.7-Gb/s NRZ-OOK neighbors
Mingliang Deng (
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, Xingwen Yi (
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Hongbo Zhang (
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Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communication Networks, Ministry of Education,
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
∗
Corresponding author: dengmingliang9@163.com
Received April 18, 2012; accepted June 20, 2012; posted online September 28, 2012
Fiber nonlinearity limits the use of coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-
OFDM) to upgrade wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) systems using legacy non-return-to-zero-on-
off-keying (NRZ-OOK) channels. This letter proposes to compensate for the fiber nonlinearity of CO-
OFDM with NRZ-OOK neighbors by combining digital signal processing (DSP)-based self-phase modula-
tion (SPM) post-compensation with pilot-tone-based cross-phase modulation (XPM) compensation. The
simulation results demonstrate that the optimum low-pass filter bandwidth for pilot-tone-based XPM com-
pensation depends on the pilot-to-signal ratio value and launch optical power. Our method allows a 4-dB
increase in the launch power for a 40-Gb/s single polarization CO-OFDM channel placed in the middle of
six 10.7-Gb/s NRZ channels in a 50-GHz space and 1 200-km WDM system.
OCIS codes: 060.1660, 060.4370, 060.4080, 060.2330.
doi: 10.3788/COL201210.110602.
Coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multi-
plexing (CO-OFDM) is immune to linear impairments
in optica l fiber transmissions, such as chromatic disp e r-
sion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD)
[1,2]
.
However, fib er nonlinearities for long-haul CO-OFDM
transmission systems restrict the optical power launched
into e ach fiber span and the tr ansmission distance
[3,4]
.
Thus, several studies have been devoted to the nonlin-
earity compe nsation for CO-O FDM systems
[5−7]
.
In legacy waveleng th-divis ion multiplexing (WDM) op-
tical networks, no n-return-to-zero-on-off-keying (NRZ-
OOK) is the dominant modulation format, and the pe-
riodic dispersion map is used to compensate for CD.
In these optical networks, CO-OFDM can be used to
upgrade a few wavelengths. The mixed modulation for-
mats can then coexist in one optical link. However, the
fiber nonlinea rity p e rformance of CO-O FDM is poor in
such networks due to self-phase modulation (SPM)
[8]
and
cross-pha se modulation (XPM) from the NRZ neighbors
operated at 10.7 Gb/s
[9]
. Therefore, fiber nonlinearity
compensation for the CO-OFDM channel is useful. Us-
ing the phase modulation proportional to the bandwidth-
limited received intensity o n all channels to cancel cross-
phase modula tio n XPM caused by NRZ neighbor s was
proposed in Ref. [10], and the nonlinearity threshold was
improved to about 2 dB.
In this letter, the effectiveness of digital signal pro-
cessing (DSP)-base d SPM post-compensation and pilot-
tone (PT)-based XPM compensation is demonstrated to
mitigate the fiber nonlinear impairments of CO-OFDM
transmission w ith 10.7-Gb/s NRZ neighbors in the con-
ventional WDM system. The optimum low-pass filter
(LPF) bandwidth for PT-based XPM compensation was
also s hown to depend on the pilot-to-signal ratio (PSR)
at different launch optical powers, which is different from
the PT-aided phase noise compensation in Ref. [2]. In a
numerical simulation of a 50-GHz spacing and 1 200-km
WDM tr ansmission with inline dispersion compensation,
the optimum launch power for a 40-Gb/s CO-OFDM
channel placed in the middle of six 10.7-Gb/s NRZ chan-
nels is increased by 4 dB, and the Q-factor can also be
improved by 1.5 dB at the optimal operational power.
Meanwhile, no penalty was found in the amplified si-
multaneous emission (ASE) limited linear region using
optimum PSR values and LPF bandwidths for PT ex-
traction.
The fiber nonlinear impairments of the CO-OFDM
channel with NRZ neighbors predominantly consist of
SPM caused by intensity fluctuation of the CO-OFDM
channel and the XPM induced by NRZ neighbors. SPM
can be partially removed by imposing a phase modulation
proportional to the instantaneous received CO-OFDM
channel power before the fast Fourier transform (FFT)
in the OFDM receiver
[11]
. This phase modulation c an
be expressed as S
1
(t) = S
Rx
(t)e
−jβ|S
Rx
(t)|
2
, where S
1
(t)
is the SPM mitigated CO-OFDM signal, S
Rx
(t) is the
time domain signal o f the CO-OFDM channel at the
receiver, and β is a phenomenological nonlinear factor
that can be estimated without the fiber link information.
The optimal β can b e estimated, for instance, based on
the maximum Q- factor of the received constellation or
the minimum rece ived bit error r ate (BER). Due to the
CD-caused walk-off of the subcarriers in OFDM signa l,
the intensity fluctuations of the highest frequency sub-
carriers have a minimal contribution to the nonlinear
degradation
[12]
. Thus, a digital L PF is introduced to
restrict the ba ndwidth of the compensation signal. The
block diagram and algo rithm of SPM compensation are
depicted in Fig. 1.
PT-based nonlinearity comp e ns ation is similar to the
PT-aided phase noise compensation in Ref. [2]. This
compensation was proposed for the case o f fiber non-
linearities in CO-OFDM WDM systems in Refs. [13–
15]. The PT-based nonlinearity compensation is only
1671-7694/2012/110602(4) 110602-1
c
2012 Chinese Optics Letters