t
A
A
A
A
A
"-
/
/ /
-
/, t
-
OFDM
A
A
A
/
/: -
/, t
-
Receiver A
xe2lJlk
A
A
/
A
A
t
A
\
A
A
A
_
e
2f I lk
0
A
Fig. 2 Schematic illustration of 4-subcarrier all-optical sampling OFDM multiplexing and demultiplexing that show how
inter subcarrier orthogonality is preserved. The number values inside pulse shapes indicate the phasor notation of
Proc. of SPIE-OSA-IEEENoL 8309 83091W-2
instantaneous phase with respect to fequency 1.
At a receiver, the OFDM symbol is sampled at every _ , and separated into individual fber paths. At this point
the spectrum of each sampled pulse is broadened to cover the whole spectrum of the OFDM symbol. In other words, the
fequency information is smeared by sampling but the instantaneous phase information is kept. Then each sampled
optical pulses are time aligned at the input of forward DFT that shifs phase of each pulse by
e
2
7f/k
The spectrum
representation at an output port of the forward DFT is formed by constructive interference for the designated subcarrier
fequency, and by destructive interference for other subcarrier fequencies. The performance of an all-optical OFDM
receiver is critically affected by how accurately destructive interference cancellation is achieved.
The DFT realization with optical circuity can be attained with the state-of-the-art planar lightwave circuit (PLC)
technology. There are two major PLC solutions: 2x2-coupler-based DFT and arayed-waveguide-(A WG)-based DFT.
Fig. 3(a) depicts an optical circuit diagram that constructs a 4x4 inverse DFT [6,8]. This design is scalable with an N
log2N cost similarly to an FFT. However, this construction is extremely sensitive to phase errors in the waveguide as a
large number of interference terms appear at an output port.
Fig. 3(b) is another implementation scheme utilizing an A WG device technique. This confguration consists of
the fee-space phase shifer for the DFT and the waveguide array for the delay. The optical DFT is simply achieved by
placing ports at careflly design positions on the fee space region, such as reported in [9-12]. Combination of the DFT
with an array of waveguide for the time delay step forms a standard architecture of an A WG mUltiplexer. The
corresponding transfer function of each port is presented in Fig. 3(c), which is the same for a coupler-based DFT
combined with a delay step array. The transfer fnction shows zero power spectrum crosstalk in the neighbor and other
subcarier channels. As a matter of fact, the implementation issue of an OFDM multiplexer is how one can achieve this
flter function with various device technologies. The manufacturability is known to be better with the A WG device than
with the coupler based device [14]. The same transfer fnctions can be attained by fber Bragg grating (FBG) technology
[ 15].
(b)
phasO shI!L by
-
inverse
mI:0
j [(SO-S2) + i(SI-S3)]l2
| [(SO-S2) - i(SI-SJ)]l2
[(SO+S2) - (SI+S3)]/2
[(SO+S2) + (SI+S3)]12
(c)
1 .2
M
. 0.8
c
0.6
U
~ 0.4
e
I 0.2
o
-75 -50 -25 0 25 50 75
Frequency (GHz)
Fig. 3 All-optical OFDM multiplexer designs and the ideal transfer function for 4x4 example; (a) coupler based inverse
DFT, (b) A WG based inverse DFT and delay step array, and ( c) transfer fnctions of 4 subcarrier ports.
An ideal OFDM symbol with on-off keying has a spectral efciency of 1 bps/Hz. The spectrum of 4x25Gbps all
optical OFDM obtained by numerical modeling is shown in Fig. 4(a). When this symbol is demultplexed at an OFDM
receiver of Fig. 1, an R output can be found as presented in Fig. 4(b). The performance achieved by an ideal transmitter
and receiver pair is a little better than that of a single-carrier 100 Gbps R on/off keying transmission.
The OFDM demultiplexer design is nothing but a reverse of the optical circuits, except for the sampling process.
In principle, the sampling creates amplitude and phase information of an OFDM symbol, in a way that each sample is
time demultiplexed into a different path. However, sampling can be moved to afer the forward DFT, or even afer the
photodetector in Fig. 1. The schematic illustration of the demultiplexing process is presented in Fig. 5. In this receiver
design, the bandwidth of all components, especially, the photodetector, has to be broad enough to sample the narrow
autocorrelation feature as shown in Fig. 5(b), and hence the optical and electrical noise fltering is not as effective as
optically sampling model of Fig. 1.
Proc. of SPIE-OSA-IEEENol. 8309 83091W-3
(a)
o .-
c @ -10
\ E
0. -20
W T
. c
-30
*
.! a -40
W
-50
-60
- 50 -25 0 25 50
Frequency Detuning (GHz)
(b)
o
20 40 60
Time (ps)
80
Fig. 4 Typical example of all-optical sampling OFDM symbol, (a), and the demultiplexed subcarrier output at a receiver (b).
(a) (b)
OFDM Receiver
{.
with post sampling
f.
I.
}X 7
=
' f
I.
{
-' //
f. _
received fff/
O|0symbo|
I.
l l_ l_ l_
Fig. 5 Schematic illustration of an OFDM receiver (a) and its demultiplexing process (b) with post sampling at a receiver.
The upper and lower eye patterns correspond to the auto-correlated and cross-correlated subcarriers. At the designated
sampling position, both patters together show OFDM orthogonality.
3. PRACTICAL ApPLICA TION CONSIDERATIONS
The OFDM transceiver reference model of Fig. 1 requires quite complex optical circuits and phase sensitive operation
conditions. There are many variants in transmitter and receiver designs. First, the OFDM subcarriers may not need to be
mode10cked in the linear propagation limit. When subcarriers are modelocked, one can introduce phase control in
subcarriers to control instantaneous peak power [16]. However, how to control the transmission performance againt non
linear fber impairment is not known clearly. Besides, uncertainty or randomness in subcarrier phases does not break
orthogonality of OFDM as long as the fequencies are accurately controlled. Hence the embodiment of the conceptual
circuit design of Fig.1 can be replaced by a simple model if accurate optical fequency control is provided for the
continuous wave (LY) laser sources, as illustated in Fig. 6. In this case, the output spectrum of a modulated optical
signal needs to be careflly controlled to match with the transfer fnction of Fig. 3( c).
Similarly to advanced OFDM transmission techniques used in radio wireless communication systems, cyclic
prefx can mitigate channel impairments. In optical transmission, chromatic dispersion, polarization modal dispersion
(PMD) impairment, and other inter-symbol interference (lSI) can be mitigated [2]. Fig. 7 presents a reference design to
generate an OFDM symbol with cyclic prefx with ratio of 4: 5. The inverse DFT is designed for 4x25 GHz forward DFT
but with a sampling rate of 20GHz. Within one period of sampling, the OFDM demultiplexer takes 4 samples instead of
5 samples at every . Cyclic prefx can be generated with a simple similar modifcation in an FBG based OFDM
multiplexer [15].
The same effect can be achieved if one reduces the modulation rate of an OFDM multiplexer of Fig. 6 while
keeping the subcarrier spacing the same, 25 GHz, the same effect as cyclic prefx can be achieved. This has been used in
early experimental reports without clear understandings. In this application the modulation spectrum is critically
important to have no power at the center fequencies of neighbor subcarriers.
Proc. of SPIE-OSA-IEEENol. 8309 83091W-4
4x25 Gbps
1 Gbps
freq. locked
CW lasers
spectrum tailored
modulators
J
Fig. 6 cw-Iaser OFDM transmission schematic optical circuit
diagram. The coupler can be replaced by an OFDM
multiplexer, or other types of DWDM mux if the transfer
fnction is careflly tailored to match with Fig. 3(c).
Fig. 7 OFDM transmission schematic with cyclic prefx. The
corresponding receiver OFDM is the same as in Fig. 1 but with
sampling rate of 20 GIz.
The penalty fom chromatic dispersion can be mitigated by applying optical bandpass flters right afer data
modulators, because the modulation bandwidth is limited and less sensitive to chromatic dispersion penalty. Another
technique to mitigate the chromatic dispersion penalty is to adjust the time delay at each sub carrier port of iDFT because
chromatic dispersion causes a different group delay to different subcarriers, and the delay adjustment can detune the
overlap of crosstalk away fom the signal position in the time domain [17].
4. SUMMARY
In this paper, we review the fndamental principles of all optical OFDM tansmission technologies. An ideal embodiment
of the reference model may require relatively complex and phase-sensitive optical circuitry and optical sampling at the
receiver. However, there are many variants that can achieve OFDM mUltiplex and demultiplex, with even simpler and
reliable device designs. Such examples discussed in this paper include an A WG-based OFDM multiplexer and
demultiplexer, a receiver design without optical sampling, a tansmitter design with fequency-locked LY lasers, an OFDM
cyclic prefx designs, and a chromatic dispersion mitigation technique. This review paper can excite intiguing questions
and new implementation ideas that come fom the clear understandings of all-optical sampling OFDM fndamental
principles.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported in part by the IT R&D program of MKE/IITA [2008-FOI7-02, IOOGbps Etheret and optical
transmission technology development].
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