Total net-rate of 27.88 Tb/s full C-band transmission over 4,550†km using 150†km span length and high-gain EDFA amplification.

We experimentally demonstrate a total net-rate of 27.88 Tb/s for C-band wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission over an ultralong span-length of 150 km. It is the largest net capacity × span-length product of 4182 Tb/s·km for C-band, single-core, standard single-mode optical fiber transmission over a length of more than 3,000 km. A total of 99 channels, spaced at 50 GHz intervals, are employed for transmitting 32 GBaud probabilistically constellation-shaped (PCS) 64QAM signals with an information entropy of 5.5. High gain amplifiers can achieve wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission with a bandwidth of 6.25 THz, at a noise figure below 4.3 dB, without the assistance of distributed Raman amplification.

Multi-channel broadband optical chaos generation assisted by phase modulation and CFBG feedback.

In this paper, we propose a novel and simple multi-channel broadband optical chaos generation scheme based on phase modulation and chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG). Firstly, phase modulation is introduced to generate more new frequency components to broaden the spectrum of the phase chaos. Meanwhile, the accumulated dispersion from CFBG distorts the intensity chaos, converts phase chaos to intensity chaos, and weakens the laser relaxation oscillation. This process would lead to energy redistribution in the power spectrum, effectively increasing the chaotic bandwidth. Then, the wavelength detuning between CFBG and the semiconductor laser is introduced to enhance the chaotic bandwidth further. The experiment results show that the 10 dB bandwidths of the five channels are up to 31.0 GHz, 34.3 GHz, 36.3 GHz, 40 GHz, and 40 GHz, respectively. Note that the maximum bandwidth of the PD in our experiment is limited to 40 GHz. In addition, the multi-channel chaotic signals obtained from the experiment system are used to generate multi-channel physical random numbers. After the post-processing operations, the total rate of five parallel high-speed physical random number generation channels is 4.64 Tbit/s (160 GSa/s × 5bit × 1 channel + 160 GSa/s × 6bit × 4 channels). As far as we know, this is the highest record of using external cavity feedback semiconductor lasers to generate random numbers, which has great potential to meet the security requirements of next-generation Tbit/s optical communication systems.

Fast fiber nonlinearity compensation method for PDM coherent optical transmission systems based on the Fourier neural operator.

Fiber nonlinearity compensation (NLC) is likely to become an indispensable component of coherent optical transmission systems for extending the transmission reach and increasing capacity per fiber. In this work, we introduce what we believe to be a novel fast black-box neural network model based on the Fourier neural operator (FNO) to compensate for the chromatic dispersion (CD) and nonlinearity simultaneously. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated in uniformly distributed as well as probabilistically-shaped 32GBaud 16/32/64-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16/32/64QAM) polarization-division-multiplexed (PDM) coherent optical communication systems. The experimental results demonstrate that about 0.31 dB Q-factor improvement is achieved compared to traditional digital back-propagation (DBP) with 5 steps per span for PDM-16QAM signals after 1600 km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission at the optimal launched power of 4 dBm. While, the time consumption is reduced from 6.04 seconds to 1.69 seconds using a central processing unit (CPU), and from 1.54 seconds to only 0.03 seconds using a graphic processing unit (GPU), respectively. This scheme also reveals noticeable generalization ability in terms of launched power and modulation format.

Experimental demonstration of 201.6-Gbit/s coherent probabilistic shaping QAM transmission with quantum noise stream cipher over a 1200-km standard single mode fiber.

A probabilistic shaping (PS) quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) based on Y-00 quantum noise stream cipher (QNSC) has been proposed. We experimentally demonstrated this scheme with data rate of 201.6Gbit/s over a 1200-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) under a 20% SD-FEC threshold. Accounting for the 20% FEC and 6.25% pilot overhead, the achieved net data rate is ∼160Gbit/s. In the proposed scheme, a mathematical cipher (Y-00 protocol) is utilized to convert the original low-order modulation PS-16 (22 × 22) QAM into ultra-dense high-order modulation PS-65536 (28 × 28) QAM. Then, the physical randomness of quantum (shot) noise at photodetection and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise from optical amplifiers are employed to mask the encrypted ultra-dense high-order signal for further improving the security. We further analyze the security performance by two metrics known in the reported QNSC systems, namely the number of masked signals (NMS) of noise and the detection failure probability (DFP). Experimental results show it is difficult or even impossible to extract transmission signals from quantum or ASE noise for an eavesdropper (Eve). We believe that the proposed PS-QAM/QNSC secure transmission scheme has the potential to be compatible with existing high-speed long-distance optical fiber communication systems.

Modeling of a multi-parameter chaotic optoelectronic oscillator based on the Fourier neural operator.

A model construction scheme of chaotic optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) based on the Fourier neural operator (FNO) is proposed. Different from the conventional methods, we learn the nonlinear dynamics of OEO (actual components) in a data-driven way, expecting to obtain a multi-parameter OEO model for generating chaotic carrier with high-efficiency and low-cost. FNO is a deep learning architecture which utilizes neural network as a parameter structure to learn the trajectory of the family of equations from training data. With the assistance of FNO, the nonlinear dynamics of OEO characterized by differential delay equation can be modeled easily. In this work, the maximal Lyapunov exponent is applied to judge whether these time series have chaotic behavior, and the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) is introduced to evaluate the modeling performance. Compare with long and short-term memory (LSTM), FNO is not only superior to LSTM in modeling accuracy, but also requires less training data. Subsequently, we analyze the modeling performance of FNO under different feedback gains and time delays. Both numerical and experimental results show that the PCC can be greater than 0.99 in the case of low feedback gain. Next, we further analyze the influence of different system oscillation frequencies, and the generalization ability of FNO is also analyzed.

Chaotic optical communications at 56 Gbit/s over 100-km fiber transmission based on a chaos generation model driven by long short-term memory networks.

Chaotic optical communication technology is considered as an effective secure communication technology, which can protect information from a physical layer and is compatible with the existing optical networks. At present, to realize long-distance chaos synchronization is still a very difficult problem, mainly because well-matched hardware cannot always be guaranteed between the transmitter and receiver. In this Letter, we introduce long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to learn a nonlinear dynamics model of an opto-electronic feedback loop, and then apply the trained deep learning model to generate a chaotic waveform for encryption and decryption at the transmitter and receiver. Furthermore, to improve the security, we establish a deep learning model pool which consists of different gain trained models and different delay trained models, and use a digital signal to drive chaos synchronization between the receiver and transmitter. The proposed scheme is experimentally verified in chaotic-encrypted 56-Gbit/s PAM-4 systems, and a decrypted performance below 7%FEC threshold (BER = 3.8×10-3) can be achieved over a 100-km fiber transmission.

Trading off security and practicability to explore high-speed and long-haul chaotic optical communication.

Recent demonstrations of chaos-based secure communication have proven the feasibility of secured transmission of high-speed (tens of Gbit/s) signals over certain distances (∼100-km), which bring hope for secure communication from theoretical analysis to practical applications. So far, the chaos-based secure communication system with chaos-masking (CMS) encryption is considered as one of the most important and feasible schemes. In this paper, an optical chaotic carrier generated by an opto-electronic oscillator is used to encrypt 112-Gbit/s message by CMS encryption for data transmission over a 1040-km single-mode-fiber. The message is successfully decrypted by combining coherent detection and our proposed blind decryption algorithms, which can successfully separate the chaotic carrier and the message with the bit-error-rate (BER) below the forward error correction (FEC) threshold. Experimental results show that the coherent detection combined digital signal processing algorithms may be a possible way to promote the practical applications of chaotic optical communication in the future. In addition, this paper reveals that the security of the CMS encryption may be not high enough for those systems requiring rigorous confidentiality. Subsequently, we further discuss the bottlenecks encountered in current high-speed chaotic optical communication systems and analyze how to improve and weight the security and practicability.

Blind optical modulation format identification assisted by signal intensity fluctuation for autonomous digital coherent receivers.

A novel and blind optical modulation format identification (MFI) scheme assisted by signal intensity fluctuation features is proposed for autonomous digital coherent receivers of next generation optical network. The proposed MFI scheme needn't to pre-know OSNR value of incoming signal, even though it is well known that the intensity dependent features of the incoming signal changes as the change of OSNR performance. Here, the proposed scheme firstly utilizes two kinds of signal intensity fluctuation features, Godard's criterion error and intensity noise variance, to construct a two-dimensional (2D) plane where three different regions which consist of QPSK region, 8QAM region, mixed 16/32/64QAM region can be found. Thus, we can firstly identify QPSK and 8QAM from the 2D plane, and then partition Godard's criterion error method is introduced to further identify 16QAM, 32QAM and 64QAM in our proposed scheme. The performance of the proposed scheme is firstly verified by a series of numerical simulations in 28GBaud PDM-QPSK/-8QAM/-16QAM/-32QAM/-64QAM coherent optical communication systems. The results show that the lowest required OSNR values to achieve 100% recognition rate for all modulation format signals are even lower than or close to their corresponding theoretical 20% FEC limits (BER = 2.4 × 10-2). Finally, the feasibility is further demonstrated via a series of proof-of-concept experiments among 28GBaud PDM-QPSK/-8QAM/-16QAM, and 21.5GBaud PDM-32QAM systems under back-to-back and long-haul fiber transmission links (from 320 km to 2000km). Experiment results show that the proposed scheme is robust to both linear and nonlinear noise.

Simultaneous demultiplexing of 2 × PDM-PAM4 signals using simplified receiver.

Simultaneous transmission of two polarization-division-multiplexing four-level pulse-amplitude-modulation (2 × PDM-PAM4) signals is proposed, and a simplified receiver is used for demultiplexing two data streams. Experimental results at 160-Gbit/s show that the power penalty of each data stream is ~0.4-dB (back-to-back) and ~1-dB (25-km transmission) compared with the single PDM system. Furthermore, the stabilization of the proposed scheme is investigated. The BER fluctuation is <0.5-dB at a polarization scrambling rate up to 1417.5-deg/s.

Modulation format identification and OSNR monitoring using density distributions in Stokes axes for digital coherent receivers.

We experimentally demonstrate a modulation format identification (MFI) and optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring method for digital coherent receivers by using the specific features of received signals' density distributions in Stokes axes combined with deep neural networks (DNNs). The features of received signals' density distribution fitting curves in S1 and S2 axes depend on the signal's modulation format and OSNR. The proposed technique extracts the features of these fitting curves' first-order derivation for MFI and OSNR monitoring, in order to improve the probability of format correct identification and OSNR estimation accuracy. Experimental results for 28Gbaud/s polarization-division multiplexing (PDM) quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK), PDM 8 quadrature amplitude modulation (PDM-8QAM), PDM-16QAM, and 21.5Gbaud/s PDM-32QAM signals demonstrate OSNR monitoring over back-to-back transmission with mean estimation standard errors (SEs) of 0.21dB, 0.48dB, 0.35dB and 0.44dB, respectively. The MFI results over back-to-back transmission show that 100% identification accuracy of all these four modulation formats are achieved at the OSNR values lower or equal to their respective 7% forward error correction (FEC) thresholds. Similarly, 100% identification accuracy also is obtained for PDM-QPSK, PDM-8QAM, PDM-16QAM, and PDM-32QAM after 2000km, 2000km, 1040km, and 400km standard single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission within practical optical power ranges launched to the fiber, respectively.

Simplified demultiplexing scheme for two PDM-IM/DD systems utilizing a single Stokes analyzer over 25-km SMF.

We propose a four-linear state of polarization multiplexed intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) scheme based on two orthogonal polarization division multiplexing (PDM) on-off keying systems. We also experimentally demonstrate a simple demultiplexing algorithm for this scheme by utilizing only a single Stokes analyzer. At the rate of 4×10 Gbit/s, the experimental results show that the power penalty of the proposed scheme is about 1.5 dB, compared to the single PDM-IM/DD for back-to-back (B2B) transmission. Compared to B2B, just about 1.7 dB power penalty is required after 25 km Corning LEAF optical fiber transmission. Meanwhile, the performance of the polarization tracking is evaluated, and the results show that the BER fluctuation is less than 0.5 dB with a polarization scrambling rate up to 708.75 deg/s.

Transmission of three-polarization-multiplexed 25-Gb/s DPSK signals over 300-km fiber link.

Polarization is one of the key parameters to be utilized for large capacity and high spectral-efficient optical communication systems, especially the widely deployed polarization-division-multiplexing (PDM) scheme. To break the limitation of only two orthogonal polarization states that could be used for carrying data signals over the same wavelength, we experimentally demonstrate the first transmission of three-polarization-division-multiplexed DPSK signals at a rate up to 3×25 Gb/s over 300-km fiber link by using a single-carrier.

Fast and adaptive chromatic dispersion compensation scheme for digital coherent systems utilizing two-stage estimation.

A two-stage fast and adaptive chromatic dispersion (CD) estimation algorithm is proposed and demonstrated for coherent polarization-division-multiplexed (PDM) systems. The first stage uses signal power auto-correlation function for the coarse estimation while the second stage utilizes a modified constant modulus algorithm (MCMA) to obtain much more accurate accumulated CD. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is sufficient for CD estimation in non-dispersion-managed optical transmission of 112-Gb/s PDM-QPSK or 224-Gb/s PDM-16QAM signals. The concept is further experimentally verified in a 40-Gb/s PDM-QPSK system. Only ~7% estimation time is required to achieve similar accuracy compared to previous MCMA algorithm.

Adaptive linearized microwave downconversion utilizing a single dual-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator.

An adaptive postprocessing approach to improve the linearity of the down-converted analog photonic link has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. With the inverse transformation for the detected signal, the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) can be significantly suppressed when only the frequency and bandwidth of the signal are known. Experimental results show that the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of the link can reach ∼126 dB·Hz(4/5) after the proposed compensation scheme.

Transmission of multi-polarization-multiplexed signals: another freedom to explore?

We propose a configuration of signal multiplexing with four polarization states, and investigate its transmission performance over single-mode-fiber links. Assisted by coherent detection and digital signal processing (DSP), the demodulation of four-polarization multiplexed (4PM) on-off-keying (OOK) and phase-shift-keying (PSK) signals are achieved. We then discuss the impact of the crosstalk from polarization mode dispersion (PMD) on 4PM systems. The transmission distance is extended from ~50-km to ~80 km by employing feedback-decision-equalizers. We also compare the back-to-back characteristics of the 40-Gbit/s 4PM-OOK system and 40-Gbit/s PDM-QPSK system with the same spectral efficiency. The results show that the performance of 4PM systems is comparable to that of PDM-QPSK systems, which indicates that the proposed scheme is a potentially promising candidate for future optical networks.

Integrated sensing and communication in an optical fibre.

The integration of high-speed optical communication and distributed sensing could bring intelligent functionalities to ubiquitous optical fibre networks, such as urban structure imaging, ocean seismic detection, and safety monitoring of underground embedded pipelines. This work demonstrates a scheme of integrated sensing and communication in an optical fibre (ISAC-OF) using the same wavelength channel for simultaneous data transmission and distributed vibration sensing. The scheme not only extends the intelligent functionality for optical fibre communication system, but also improves its transmission performance. A periodic linear frequency modulation (LFM) light is generated to act as the optical carrier and sensing probe in PAM4 signal transmission and phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR), respectively. After a 24.5 km fibre transmission, the forward PAM4 signal and the carrier-correspondence Rayleigh backscattering signal are detected and demodulated. Experimental results show that the integrated solution achieves better transmission performance (~1.3 dB improvement) and a larger launching power (7 dB enhancement) at a 56 Gbit/s bit rate compared to a conventional PAM4 signal transmission. Meanwhile, a 4 m spatial resolution, 4.32-nε/[Formula: see text] strain resolution, and over 21 kHz frequency response for the vibration sensing are obtained. The proposed solution offers a new path to further explore the potential of existing or future fibre-optic networks by the convergence of data transmission and status sensing. In addition, such a scheme of using shared spectrum in communication and distributed optical fibre sensing may be used to measure non-linear parameters in coherent optical communications, offering possible benefits for data transmission.

Photonic generation of triangular-shaped pulses based on frequency-to-time conversion.

An all-fiber approach to generate triangular-shaped pulses based on frequency-to-time conversion is proposed and demonstrated. Two filter modules that have sinusoidal spectral responses are cascaded to create a triangular-shaped optical spectrum. Through the frequency-to-time conversion in a dispersive fiber, periodic triangular pulses with the same shape as the optical spectrum are obtained. The repetition rate and pulse width of the generated signals can be tuned by adjusting the modulation rate and the dispersion value, respectively.

Two-dimensionally tunable microwave signal generation based on optical frequency-to-time conversion.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an all-fiber-based approach to generate microwave signals with tunable frequency and pulse width. The adjustable optical power spectrum can be achieved using a spectrum shaper, consisting of a variable differential-group-delay element and a bandwidth-tunable optical filter. Through the frequency-to-time conversion in the dispersive fiber, the frequency and pulse width of the obtained microwave signals can be user defined by modifying the optical spectrum shape.

Use of polarization freedom beyond polarization-division multiplexing to support high-speed and spectral-efficient data transmission.

Increasing the system capacity and spectral efficiency (SE) per unit bandwidth is one of the ultimate goals for data network designers, especially when using technologies compatible with current embedded fiber infrastructures. Among these, the polarization-division-multiplexing (PDM) scheme, which supports two independent data channels on a single wavelength with orthogonal polarization states, has become a standard one in most state-of-art telecommunication systems. Currently, however, only two polarization states (that is, PDM) can be used, setting a barrier for further SE improvement. Assisted by coherent detection and digital signal processing, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme for pseudo-PDM of four states (PPDM-4) by manipulation of four linearly polarized data channels with the same wavelength. Without any modification of the fiber link, we successfully transmit a 100-Gb s-1 PPDM-4 differential-phase-shift-keying signal over a 150-km single-mode fiber link. Such a method is expected to open new possibilities to fully explore the use of polarization freedom for capacity and SE improvement over existing fiber systems.