Colorless WRC-FPLDs Subject to Gain-Saturated RSOA Feedback for WDM-PONs

• Published in: IEEE photonics technology letters Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 43 - 46
• Main Authors: Deng, M. L., Giddings, R. P., Tsai, C.-T, Lin, G.-R, Tang, J. M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.01.2018
• Subjects: Fabray–Perot resonators; Optical amplifiers; Optical attenuators; Optical feedback; Optical filters; Optical reflection; Optical transmitters; Passive optical networks; reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA); wavelength division multiplexed passive optical networks (WDM-PON)
• ISSN: 1041-1135; 1941-0174
• DOI: 10.1109/LPT.2017.2773533

A directly modulated, colorless, weak-resonantcavity Fabry-Perot laser diode (WRC-FPLD)-based transmitter is, for the first time, proposed and experimentally demonstrated for wavelength-division multiplexed passive optical networks (WDM-PONs). The transmitter utilizes optical gainsaturated reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA)induced feedback and is free from external optical injection. Experimental investigations are undertaken of the impact of RSOA-feedback dynamic mechanisms on directly modulated output optical signals and corresponding colorless transmission performances for various system architectures. It is shown that the coherent-like optical source produced by the proposed transmitter architecture offers an output wavelength tunable range as large as 65 nm with side-mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) of >37 dB. In simple 25-km single-mode fiber intensity modulation and direct detection WDM-PON systems, the colorless transmission of directly modulated 7.5-Gb/s optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed signals is experimentally achieved over a wavelength tunable range of 35 nm, during which <;1 dB differences of received optical powers at bit error rates of 2.3 × 10 -3 are also experimentally obtainable.