Fiber-optic communication systems are nowadays facing serious challenges due to the fast growing demand on capacity from various new applications and services. It is now well recognized that nonlinear effects limit the spectral efficiency and transmission reach of modern fiber-optic communications. Nonlinearity compensation is therefore widely believed to be of paramount importance for increasing the capacity of future optical networks. Recently, there has been steadily growing interest in the application of a powerful mathematical tool—the nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT)—in the development of fundamentally novel nonlinearity mitigation tools for fiber-optic channels. It has been recognized that, within this paradigm, the nonlinear crosstalk due to the Kerr effect is effectively absent, and fiber nonlinearity due to the Kerr effect can enter as a constructive element rather than a degrading factor. The novelty and the mathematical complexity of the NFT, the versatility of the proposed system designs, and the lack of a unified vision of an optimal NFT-type communication system, however, constitute significant difficulties for communication researchers. In this paper, we therefore survey the existing approaches in a common framework and review the progress in this area with a focus on practical implementation aspects. First, an overview of existing key algorithms for the efficacious computation of the direct and inverse NFT is given, and the issues of accuracy and numerical complexity are elucidated. We then describe different approaches for the utilization of the NFT in practical transmission schemes. After that we discuss the differences, advantages, and challenges of various recently emerged system designs employing the NFT, as well as the spectral efficiency estimates available up-to-date. With many practical implementation aspects still being open, our mini-review is aimed at helping researchers assess the perspectives, understand the bottlenecks, and envision the development paths in the upcoming NFT-based transmission technologies.

Nonlinear Fourier transform for optical data processing and transmission: advances and perspectives

Current optical fibre transmission systems rely on modulation, coding and multiplexing techniques that were originally developed for linear communication channels. However, linear transmission techniques are not fully compatible with a transmission medium with a nonlinear response, which is the case for an optical fibre. As a consequence, the Kerr nonlinearity in fibre imposes a limit on the performance and the achievable transmission rate of the conventional optical fibre communication systems. Here we show that a transmission performance beyond the conventional Kerr nonlinearity limit can be achieved by encoding all the available degrees of freedom and nonlinearly multiplexing signals in the so-called nonlinear Fourier spectrum, which evolves linearly along the fibre link. This result strongly motivates a fundamental paradigm shift in modulation, coding and signal-processing techniques for optical fibre transmission technology. The Kerr nonlinearity limit for optical fibre communications is surpassed by using nonlinear multiplexing.

Nonlinear signal multiplexing for communication beyond the Kerr nonlinearity limit

In this paper, we review the historical evolution of predictions of the performance of optical communication systems. We will describe how such predictions were made from the outset of research in laser based optical communications and how they have evolved to their present form, accurately predicting the performance of coherently detected communication systems.

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Performance limits in optical communications due to fiber nonlinearity

In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the benefit of polarization insensitive dual-band optical phase conjugation for up to ten 400 Gb/s optical super-channels using a Raman amplified transmission link with a realistic span length of 75 km. We demonstrate that the resultant increase in transmission distance may be predicted analytically if the detrimental impacts of power asymmetry and polarization mode dispersion are taken into account.

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4 Tb/s Transmission Reach Enhancement Using 10 × 400 Gb/s Super-Channels and Polarization Insensitive Dual Band Optical Phase Conjugation

The nonlinear inverse synthesis (NIS) method, in which information is encoded directly onto the continuous part of the nonlinear signal spectrum, has been proposed recently as a promising digital signal processing technique for combating fiber nonlinearity impairments. However, because the NIS method is based on the integrability property of the lossless nonlinear Schrodinger equation, the original approach can only be applied directly to optical links with ideal distributed Raman amplification. In this paper, we propose and assess a modified scheme of the NIS method, which can be used effectively in standard optical links with lumped amplifiers, such as, erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). The proposed scheme takes into account the average effect of the fiber loss to obtain an integrable model (lossless path-averaged model) to which the NIS technique is applicable. We found that the error between lossless pathaveraged and lossy models increases linearly with transmission distance and input power (measured in dB). We numerically demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed NIS scheme in a burst mode with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission scheme with advanced modulation formats (e.g., QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM), showing a performance improvement up to 3.5 dB; these results are comparable to those achievable with multi-step per span digital backpropagation.

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Nonlinear inverse synthesis technique for optical links with lumped amplification.

We demonstrate that a combination of Raman laser based amplification and optical phase conjugation enables transmission beyond the nonlinear-Shannon limit. We show nonlinear compensation of 7x114Gbit/s DP-QPSK channels, increasing system reach by 30%.

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Exceeding the nonlinear-shannon limit using raman laser based amplification and optical phase conjugation

Polarization diverse optical phase conjugation of a 1THz spectral-band 1.14Tb/s DP-QPSK WDM multiplex is demonstrated for the first time, showing a worst case Q2 penalty of 0.9dB over all conjugate wavelengths, polarizations and OSNR.

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1THz-bandwidth polarization-diverse optical phase conjugation of 10x114Gb/s DP-QPSK WDM signals

In this paper, we investigate the performance of a Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) architecture, that is suitable of supporting high-order regular as well as offset based QAM signals. In the proposed design, a bank of Phase Sensitive Amplification (PSA) subsystems is introduced for processing offset QAM signals, while sub-channel extraction is achieved via waveform splitting and coherent subtraction. Numerical studies have been carried out to validate functional performance, when processing high-order regular and offset based QAM signals.

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Stelios Sygletos

Papers

Exceeding the nonlinear-shannon limit using raman laser based amplification and optical phase conjugation

1THz-bandwidth polarization-diverse optical phase conjugation of 10x114Gb/s DP-QPSK WDM signals

Performance Evaluation of a Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer Design for High-Order Regular and Offset-QAM Signals