We compare the demodulation performance of an analog OTDM demultiplexing scheme and digitized OTDM demultiplexing with an ultrahigh-speed digital signal processor in a single-channel OTDM coherent Nyquist pulse transmission. We evaluated the demodulation performance for 40, 80, and 160Gbaud OTDM signals with a baseline rate of 10Gbaud. As a result, we clarified that the analog scheme performs significantly better since the bandwidth for handling the demultiplexed signal is as narrow as 10GHz regardless of the symbol rate. This enables us to use a low-speed A/D converter (ADC) with a large effective number of bits (ENOB). On the other hand, in the digital scheme, the higher the symbol rate becomes, the more bandwidth the receiver requires. Therefore, it is necessary to use an ultrahigh-speed ADC with a low ENOB for a 160Gbaud signal. We measured the ENOB of the ultrahigh-speed ADC used in the digital scheme and showed that the measured ENOB was approximately 1.5 bits lower than that of the low-speed ADC used in the analog scheme. This 1.5-bit decrease causes a large degradation in the demodulation performance obtained with the digital demultiplexing scheme.

We have proposed autonomous network diagnosis platform for operation of future large capacity and virtualized network, including 5G and beyond 5G services. As for the one candidate of information collection and analyzing function blocks in the platform, we proposed novel optical sensing techniques that utilized tapped raw signal data acquired from digital coherent optical receivers. The raw signal data is captured before various digital signal processing for demodulation. Therefore, it contains various waveform deformation and/or noise as it experiences through transmission fibers. In this paper, we examined to detect two possible failures in transmission lines including fiber bending and optical filter shift by analyzing the above-mentioned raw signal data with the help of machine learning. For the purpose, we have implemented Docker container applications in WhiteBox Cassini to acquire real-time raw signal data. We generated CNN model for the detections in off-line processing and used them for real-time detections. We have confirmed successful detection of optical fiber bend and/or optical filter shift in real-time with high accuracy. Also, we evaluated their tolerance against ASE noise and invented novel approach to improve detection accuracy. In addition to that, we succeeded to detect them even in the situation of simultaneous occurrence of those failures.

In this paper, we report an experimental and numerical analysis of ultrahigh-speed coherent Nyquist pulse transmission. First, we describe a low-nonlinearity dispersion compensator for ultrahigh-speed coherent Nyquist pulse transmission; it is composed of a chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) and a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) device. By adopting CFBG instead of inverse dispersion fiber, the nonlinearity in a 160km transmission line was more than halved. Furthermore, by eliminating the group delay fluctuation of the CFBG with an LCoS device, the residual group delay was reduced to as low as 1.42ps over an 11nm bandwidth. Then, by using the transmission line with the newly constructed low-nonlinearity dispersion compensator, we succeeded in improving the BER performance of single-channel 15.3Tbit/s-160km transmission by one-third compared with that of a conventional dispersion-managed transmission line and obtained a spectral efficiency of 8.7bit/s/Hz. Furthermore, we numerically analyzed the BER performance of its Nyquist pulse transmission. The numerical results showed that the nonlinear impairment in the transmission line is the main factor limiting the transmission performance in a coherent Nyquist pulse transmission, which becomes more significant at higher baud rates.

We present detailed measurements and analysis of the guided acoustic wave Brillouin scattering (GAWBS)-induced depolarization noise in a multi-core fiber (MCF) used for a digital coherent optical transmission. We first describe the GAWBS-induced depolarization noise in an uncoupled four-core fiber (4CF) with a 125μm cladding and compare the depolarization noise spectrum with that of a standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). We found that off-center cores in the 4CF are dominantly affected by higher-order TRn,m modes rather than the TR2,m mode unlike in the center core, and the total power of the depolarization noise in the 4CF was almost the same as that in the SSMF. We also report measurement results for the GAWBS-induced depolarization noise in an uncoupled 19-core fiber with a 240μm cladding. The results indicate that the amounts of depolarization noise generated in the cores are almost identical. Finally, we evaluate the influence of GAWBS-induced polarization crosstalk (XT) on a coherent QAM transmission. We found that the XT limits the achievable multiplicity of the QAM signal to 64 in a transoceanic transmission with an MCF.

We demonstrated 1-Tb/s-class transmissions of field-deployed large-core low-loss fiber links, which is compliant with ITU-T G.654.E, using our newly developed real-time transponder consisting of a state-of-the-art 16-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) based digital signal processing application-specific integrated circuit (DSP-ASIC) and an indium phosphide (InP) based high-bandwidth coherent driver modulator (HB-CDM). In this field experiment, we have achieved record transmission distances of 1122km for net data-rate 1-Tb/s transmission with dual polarization-division multiplexed (PDM) 32 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signals, and of 336.6 km for net data-rate 1.2-Tb/s transmission with dual PDM-64QAM signals. This is the first demonstration of applying hybrid erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) and backward-distributed Raman amplifier were applied to terrestrial G.654.E fiber links. We also confirmed the stability of signal performance over field fiber transmission in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) condition. The Q-factor fluctuations respectively were only less than or equal to 0.052dB and 0.07dB for PDM-32QAM and PDM-64QAM signals within continuous measurements for 60 minutes.

We fabricated an InP-based dual-polarization In-phase and Quadrature (DP-IQ) modulator consisting of a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator array integrated with RF termination resistors and backside via holes for high-bandwidth coherent driver modulators and revealed its high reliability. These integrations allowed the chip size (Chip size: 4.4mm×3mm) to be reduced by 59% compared with the previous chip without these integrations, that is, the previous chip needed 8 chip-resistors for terminating RF signals and 12 RF electrode pads for the electrical connection with these resistors in a Signal-Ground-Signal configuration. This MZ modulator exhibited a 3-dB bandwidth of around 40 GHz as its electrical/optical response, which is sufficient for over 400 Gbit/s coherent transmission systems using 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and 64QAM signals. Also, we investigated a rapid degradation which affects the reliability of InP-based DP-IQ modulators. This rapid degradation we called optical damage is caused by strong incident light power and a high reverse bias voltage condition at the entrance of an electrode in each arm of the MZ modulators. This rapid degradation makes it difficult to estimate the lifetime of the chip using an accelerated aging test, because the value of the breakdown voltage which induces optical damage varies considerably depending on conditions, such as light power, operation wavelength, and chip temperature. Therefore, we opted for the step stress test method to investigate the lifetime of the chip. As a result, we confirmed that optical damage occurred when photo-current density at the entrance of an electrode exceeded threshold current density and demonstrated that InP-based modulators did not degrade unless operation conditions reached threshold current density. This threshold current density was independent of incident light power, operation wavelength and chip temperature.

We present InP-based photodetectors monolithically integrated with a 90° hybrid toward over 400Gb/s coherent transmission systems. To attain a wide 3-dB bandwidth of more than 40GHz for 400Gb/s dual-polarization (DP)-16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) and 600Gb/s DP-64QAM through 64GBaud operation, A p-i-n photodiode structure consisting of a GaInAs thin absorption and low doping n-typed InP buffer layers was introduced to overcome the trade-off between short carrier transit time and low parasitic capacitance. Additionally, this InP buffer layer contributes to the reduction of propagation loss in the 90° hybrid waveguide, that is, this approach allows a high responsivity as well as wide 3-dB bandwidth operation. The coherent receiver module for the C-band (1530nm - 1570nm) operation indicated the wide 3-dB bandwidth of more than 40GHz and the high receiver responsivity of more than 0.070A/W (Chip responsivity within the C-band: 0.130A/W) thanks to photodetectors with this photodiode design. To expand the usable wavelengths in wavelength-division multiplexing toward large-capacity optical transmission, the photodetector integrated with the 90° hybrid optimized for the L-band (1565nm - 1612nm) operation was also fabricated, and exhibited the high responsivity of more than 0.120A/W over the L-band. Finally, the InP-based monolithically integrated photonic device consisting of eight-channel p-i-n photodiodes, two 90° hybrids and a beam splitter was realized for the miniaturization of modules and afforded the reduction of the total footprint by 70% in a module compared to photodetectors with the 90° hybrid and four-channel p-i-n photodiodes.

This paper reviews long optical reach and large capacity transmission which has become possible because of the application of wide-band and low-noise optical fiber amplifiers and digital coherent signal processing. The device structure and mechanism together with their significance are discussed.

This paper reports dual-polarization In-phase and Quadrature (DP-IQ) modulators and photodetectors integrated with the 90° hybrid using InP-based monolithic integration technologies for 100/200Gb/s coherent transmission. The DP-IQ modulator was monolithically integrated with the Mach-Zehnder modulator array consisting of deep-ridge waveguides formed through dry etching and benzocyclobutene planarization processes. This DP-IQ modulator exhibited the low half-wavelength voltage (Vπ=1.5V) and the wide 3-dB bandwidth (f3dB > 28GHz). The photodetector monolithically integrated with the 90° hybrid consisting of multimode interference structures was realized by the butt-joint regrowth. A responsivity including total loss of 7.9dB in the waveguide was as high as 0.155A/W at a wavelength of 1550nm, and responsivity imbalance of the In-phase and Quadrature channels was less than ±0.5dB over the C-band. In addition, the low dark current (less than 500pA up to 85°C @ -3.0V) and the stable operation in the accelerated aging test (test condition: -5V at 175°C) over 5,000h were successfully achieved for the p-i-n-photodiode array with a buried heterostructure formed through the selective embedding regrowth. Finally, a receiver responsivity including intrinsic loss of 3dB in the polarization beam splitter was higher than 0.070A/W at a wavelength of 1550nm through the integration of the spot-size converter, and demodulation of 128Gb/s DP-QPSK and 224Gb/s DP-16QAM modulated signals was demonstrated for the compact coherent receiver using this photodetector integrated with the 90° hybrid. Therefore, we indicated that these InP-based monolithically integrated photonic devices are very useful for 100/200Gb/s pluggable coherent transceivers.

To meet the increasing demand to expand wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission capacity, ultrahigh spectral density coherent optical transmission employing multi-level modulation formats has attracted a lot of attention. In particular, ultrahigh multi-level quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) has an enormous advantage as regards expanding the spectral efficiency to 10 bit/s/Hz and even approaching the Shannon limit. We describe fundamental technologies for ultrahigh spectral density coherent QAM transmission and present experimental results on polarization-multiplexed 256 QAM coherent optical transmission using heterodyne and homodyne detection with a frequency-stabilized laser and an optical phase-locked loop technique. In this experiment, Raman amplifiers are newly adopted to decrease the signal power, which can reduce the fiber nonlinearity. As a result, the power penalty was reduced from 5.3 to 2.0 dB. A 64 Gbit/s data signal is successfully transmitted over 160 km with an optical bandwidth of 5.4 GHz.