160 Gbit/s OTDM Long-Haul Transmission with Long-Term Stability Using RZ-DPSK Modulation Format

Sebastian FERBER
Carsten SCHMIDT-LANGHORST
Reinhold LUDWIG
Christof BOERNER
Colja SCHUBERT
Vincent MAREMBERT
Marcel KROH
Hans-Georg WEBER

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E88-B    No.5    pp.1947-1954
Publication Date: 2005/05/01
Online ISSN: 
DOI: 10.1093/ietcom/e88-b.5.1947
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section INVITED PAPER (Joint Special Section on Recent Progress in Optoelectronics and Communications)
Category: 
Keyword: 
high bit rate transmission,  time division multiplexing,  differential phase shift keying,  

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Summary: 
We describe a transmission system having a data rate of 160 Gbit/s based on the RZ-DPSK modulation format. The 160 Gbit/s single-polarization signal is generated by optical time division multiplexing technology using the base rate of 40 Gbit/s. The setup is explained and results are given with a special focus on the stability issue of the transmission system. The pulse source, the optical gate for demultiplexing, the clock recovery and the balanced photo-detector are based on semiconductor components. We present long-term bit error measurements (10 hours) over two different long-haul fiber links. The first link comprises 3106 km standard single mode fiber and uses a PMD mitigation scheme. The other link consists of 4 dispersion managed 80 km fiber spans without the need for an additional PMD compensation. Using EDFA amplification solely and also no FEC, error-free operation was achieved over several hours, only limited by slow drift effects in the laboratory system.