Elastic optical networking by dynamic optical arbitrary waveform generation and measurement

Abstract

This paper discusses elastic optical networking (EON) by dynamic optical arbitrary waveform generation and measurement (DOAWG/DOAWM) technologies for flexible and agile bandwidth-variable transponders. The ability to generate and measure flexible bandwidth signals with arbitrary modulation formats and subwave-length granularity, as well as superchannels, makes DOAWG/DOAWM an attractive technology for EON. We introduce the DOAWG/DOAWM concept and its application to EON, and we discuss the use and advantages of DOAWG/DOAWM as the technology for a sliceable bandwidth variable transponder (SBV-T). Then we report our most recent experimental demonstration of a two-spectral-slice OAWG-SBV-T experiment to generate a single-carrier 60 Gbaud channel with dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying and dual-polarization 16 quadrature amplitude modulation formats. Finally, we discuss our current progress on the development of a chip-scale DOAWG on a heterogeneous Si3N4-InP integration platform.