A method for generating arbitrary optical signal constellations using direct digital drive

Yossef Ehrlichman*, Ofer Amrani, Shlomo Ruschin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

A digitally operated optical quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) modulator based on a single multielectrode Mach-Zehnder modulator is presented. Generation and performance of 64QAM are studied in detail. Simulation results show that a single modulator with 13 electrodes, each of which is driven by either one of the voltages 0 or 1.68vπ, provides close-to-ideal 64QAM constellation despite the inherent nonlinearity of the modulator. Moreover, employing a sufficient number of electrodes, close to ideal error performance can be obtained for any constellation order, or shape. Simulations results are demonstrated for several different square constellations: 16QAM and 256QAM, and nonsquare constellations: 32QAM and 128QAM. A brief discussion on the utilization of the proposed scheme as a predistorter is also given.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5934353
Pages (from-to)2545-2551
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Lightwave Technology
Volume29
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011

Keywords

  • Direct digital drive
  • Mach-Zehnder
  • quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)

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