μLED-Based Single-Wavelength Bi-directional POF Link With 10 Gb/s Aggregate Data Rate

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 33; no. 17; pp. 3571 - 3576
• Main Authors: Xin Li, Bamiedakis, Nikolaos, Jinlong Wei, McKendry, Jonathan J. D., Enyuan Xie, Ferreira, Ricardo, Gu, Erdan, Dawson, Martin D., Penty, Richard V., White, Ian H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2015
• Subjects: APD; Bi-directional communication; Bidirectional control; Bit error rate; Light emitting diodes; micro-LED; Optical fiber communication; Optical fibers; Optical receivers; plastic optical fiber (POF); pulse amplitude modulation (PAM); plastic optical fiber (POF); bi-directional communication; micro-LED; APD; pulse amplitude modulation (PAM)
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2015.2443984

We report record 10 Gb/s bi-directional data transmission over a single 10 m SI-POF, by employing blue microlight-emitting diodes (μLEDs) at a single wavelength, APD receivers, and a PAM-32 modulation scheme. The implementation of 10 Gb/s LED-POF links takes advantage of the bi-directional configuration, which doubles the overall channel capacity, and APDs, which provide an enhanced link power budget owing to their improved sensitivity compared with conventional p-i-n photodiodes. Moreover, the high spectral efficiency of the PAM-32 modulation scheme employed, together with equalization techniques, enable the full utilization of the link bandwidth and the transmission of data rates higher than those obtained with conventional on-off keying. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of such a bi-directional link, and simultaneous 5 Gb/s data transmission is realized in each direction, achieving an aggregate data rate of 10 Gb/s with a BER <; 10 -3 . The crosstalk penalty between the two directions of the link is measured to be less than 0.5 dB.