Direct-detection all-optical OFDM superchannel for long-reach PON

Abstract

Orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising candidate for the future high-speed optical access networks. As the OFDM signal is electronically generated and demodulated by fast Fourier transform (FFT) in the digital domain via electronic digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters (DAC/ADC) respectively, the OFDM signal bandwidth is limited by the sampling rate of the DAC/ADC. In this work, we present the feasibility of using all-optical OFDM for the future high-speed PON. All-optical OFDM is another class of optical multiple carrier transmission that relies on all-optically generated or demodulated orthogonal subcarriers. Hence, high data rate can be easily achieved. A 200 Gb/s OFDMA-LR-PON using all-optical OFDM super-channel (SC) is demonstrated. Apart from the optical wired transmission, w-band (100-GHz) millimeter-wave (MMW) wireless transmission is also demonstrated to support the in-building mobile broadband services.