OPTICAL COMMUNICATIONS: Single-wavelength channel carries 5.1 Tbit/s

The race is on for high-bit-rate data and telecommunications transmission with low power consumption. Although data rates of 5.1 Tbit/s have been achieved on a single-wavelength channel, the data bit-error rate (BER) was above the error-free requirement of less than 10^-9. But for the first time, researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (Lyngby, Denmark) have achieved 5.1 Tbit/s error-free data generation on a single wavelength channel.

In the optical time-domain multiplexing experimental setup, a 10 GHz erbium-glass oscillating pulse-generating laser emitting at 1542 nm with a full-width half-maximum pulsewidth of approximately 1.5 ps was used as the transmitter. Pulses were sent into a self-phase modulation regenerator that uses dispersion-flattened highly nonlinear fiber to provide data signals at separate wavelengths and a control pulse needed for demultiplexing at the receiver. After further compression and pulse shaping, the pulses were encoded with data using a differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK) format and then time-division multiplexed up to a 1.28 Tbaud rate, followed by polarization multiplexing using a coupler and a beamsplitter. Error-free operation (BER of less than 10^-9) was observed at different baud rates and for both DPSK and DQPSK modulation. Contact Hans Christian Hansen Mulvad at [email protected].

More Laser Focus World Current Issue Articles
More Laser Focus World Archives Issue Articles