1.

03-Exabit/s˜km Super-Nyquist-WDM Transmission over

7,326-km Seven-Core Fiber
(1) (1) (1) (2) (2) (2) (2)
K. Igarashi , T. Tsuritani , I. Morita , Y. Tsuchida , K. Maeda , M. Tadakuma , T. Saito ,
(2) (2) (2) (1)
K. Watanabe , K. Imamura , R. Sugizaki , and M. Suzuki
(1)
KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc., 2-1-15 Ohara, Fujimino-shi, Saitama, 356-8502 Japan, ko-igarashi@kddilabs.jp
(2)
Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., 6 Yawata-kaigandori, Ichihara-shi, Chiba, 290-8555 Japan.
Abstract We demonstrate 140.7-Tbit/s, 7,326-km transmission of 7u201-channel 25-GHz-spaced
Super-Nyquist-WDM 100-Gbit/s optical signals using seven-core fiber and full C-band seven-core
EDFAs. The record capacity-distance product of 1.03 Exabit/s˜km is achieved.
Introduction Gbit/s optical signals at 30 GBaud are packed
Researches and developments in optical fiber with 25-GHz spacing without introducing 16QAM
communication are mainly driven by two crucial format. Using seven-core fibers with full C-band
challenges, which are enlarging the fiber seven-core EDFAs, 140.7-Tbit/s 201-channel
capacity and extending the transmission Super-Nyquist-WDM signals are transmitted
distance. Recent development of the digital over 7,326 km. To the best of our knowledge,
coherent receiver has opened up ultra-long-haul this is the first report of high capacity
and ultra-high-capacity transmission with a transmission with a capacity-distance product in
capacity-distance product of over 100 Pbit/s˜km excess of 1 Exabit/s˜km.
even with single-core single-mode fibers (SMFs) Super-Nyquist-WDM transmission
[1-4]. Space division multiplexing (SDM) based For Super-Nyquist WDM transmission, an
on multi-core fibers (MCFs) can increase the optical signal has to be band-limited to below
capacity-distance product furthermore and 700- baudrate. We use duobinary-pulse shaping in a
Pbit/s˜km transmission has been achieved transmitter. To mitigate the degradation of
recently [5]. receiver sensitivity due to the band limitation, we
For higher capacity in such ultra-long-haul introduce maximum-likelihood sequence
MCF transmission, higher spectral efficiency is estimation (MLSE) in a receiver.
required because there is a strict limitation of the The impulse response and power spectrum
number of cores due to crosstalk between cores of duobinary-pulse shaping are shown in
of MCF. Although the introduction of the higher- Fig. 1(b) and (c), respectively. The signal
order multi-level modulation is a promising bandwidth can be reduced to a half of baudrate
technique, an appropriate format has to be B. By multiplexing such band-limited signals with
deliberately considered because the higher- frequency spacing of less than baudrate, the
order modulation format requires higher OSNR spectral overlap components can be suppressed.
and is less tolerant against core-to-core Receiving the duobinary-pulse-shaped signal
crosstalk and fiber nonlinearity. by decision on the symbol-by-symbol basis
Here, we introduce ultra-dense WDM gives a 2.1 dB loss in SNR in principle. This
technique with a frequency spacing of less than penalty can be compensated by MLSE with one
baudrate, which is called Super-Nyquist WDM or memory. Fig. 1(d) shows Trellis for a duobinary-
Faster-than-Nyquist-WDM technique [6,7]. 100- pulse-shaped signal. Note that the MLSE with
Transmitter Receiver

input Duobinary shaping DAC Coherent Linear Output

IQM
S/P

ADC

MLSE
WDM with spacing

data detection equalization data

below baundrate

Duobinary shaping DAC

Demultiplexing

<B
input Duobinary shaping DAC Coherent Linear Output
IQM

ADC
S/P

data B/2 MLSE

Duobinary shaping DAC detection equalization data
Frequency
input Duobinary shaping DAC Coherent Linear Output
IQM

ADC
S/P

Super-Nyquist-WDM MLSE
data Duobinary shaping DAC detection equalization data
transmission
(a)
t=0 t = 1/B t = 2/B t = 3/B
spectrum [a.u.]

0/0 0/0 0/0

response

0
Impulse

Power

B/2 1/1 1/1

1/1
0/1 0/1
1
Time [1/B/div] Frequency [B/div] 1/2 1/2
(b) (c) (d)
Fig. 1 (a) Concept of Super-Nyquist-WDM transmission. (b) Impulse responce and (c) power spectrum of duobinary-pulse
shaping. (d) Duobinary trellis for two-level amplitude modulation. B is baudrate of a signal.

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 8 lasers
IQM WSS
25GHz spacing
Odd W W
D core1
50GS/s
AWG
Even D W
8 lasers
IQM WSS
25GHz spacing
Loading
101 lasers
MZM IQM
50GHz spacing
W
12.5GHz
50GS/s
AWG
BPD
Real-time BPD Pol.-diversity
oscilloscope BPD optical hybrid
BPD
one memory is very simple because one out of
two incoming paths is selected as the most
probable path based on the values of the
metrics calculated by decision errors.
So far, there have been reports on Super-
Nyquist-WDM transmission using optical filters
as duobinary-pulse shaping filters [6,7]. Here,
we directly generated duobinary-pulse-shaped
DP-QPSK signals using the digital-to-analog
conversion (DAC) following digital signal
processing (DSP) at the electrical stage and the
IQ optical modulation. This has advantages of
higher accuracy and higher resolution compared
with pulse shaping in the optical domain.
Experimental setup
Fig. 2 shows the experimental setup. The
transmitter consisted of a three-rail configuration
as reported in [5]. The two rails were used for
eight even and eight odd channels. The even
and odd channels were generated by
multiplexing eight external cavity lasers (ECLs),
and they were then independently modulated by
two LiNbO3 optical IQ modulators (IQMs). The
third rail was a loading rail for generating 201
WDM channels in order to maintain not only an
OSNR but also nonlinear effects. A total of 101
lasers were combined onto a 50-GHz frequency
grid. Modulating them by a LiNbO3 Mach-
Zehnder modulator (MZM), we obtained 201 CW
tones with a 25-GHz spacing ranging from
191.2625 THz to 196.2875 THz. All 201
channels were then passed through an IQM
driven in the same manner as the modulators in
other two rails. In the experiment, we disabled
16 consecutive channels on the loading rail, and
the measured 16 channels from other two rails
were tuned to the corresponding frequencies.
Three IQMs were driven by 30-GBaud
electrical signals with square-root duobinalry-
pulse shaping which were generated by an
arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) with a 50-
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SW1
PME
GFF
SW2
PC OSA
GFF
core2
WSS SW
Power splitter
PME
7:1 switch
SW3
W
GFF
core3
SW4
WSS
core4
SW7
ECL
WSS
core7
OBPF MC-EDFA PC OSA MCF
Fig.2 Experimental setup.
Gsample/s DAC after DSP as follows: Samples
of pseudo-random bit sequences (PRBSs) of a
15
length of 2 – 1 were up-sampled twice, and
they were then discrete-Fourier-transformed
(DFT) and sent to the square-root duobinary-
pulse shaping filter. After inverse DFT, a
digitally-processed signal was sent to DAC.
After the modulated WDM signals from three
rails were fed into the polarization multiplexing
emulators (PMEs), they were combined by a
wavelength selective switch (WSS). Each
channel power of the WDM signals was
automatically equalized by the WSS with power
monitor. Consequently, we obtained 201-
channel 25-GHz-spaced Super-Nyquist-WDM
30-GBaud duobinary-pulse-shaped DP-QPSK
signals, resulting in a spectral efficiency of 4
bit/s/Hz assuming a LDPC-based SD-FEC with
20% overhead [8].
For MCF transmission, the 201-channel
WDM signals were launched into a specially
configured seven-fold recirculating loop
consisting of a span of 45.5-km seven-core fiber,
a seven-core EDFA, external gain-flattening
filters (GFFs), and optical switches (SWs). The
seven loops were synchronously operated as
reported in [9]. The seven re-circulating loops
shared a common load switch that launched
identical copies of the WDM signals into each of
the loops through a power splitter with different
delays between cores for the signal
decorrelation. After amplification by the seven-
core EDFA with external GFFs, the signals were
launched into the cores of the 45.5-km MCF.
The output signals from one core were sent to
the re-circulating loop input of the next core, in a
cyclic fashion. The core-to-core configuration
can average out variations in span loss,
dispersion, and other component imperfections
[9]. Two WSSs and two single-core EDFAs were
inserted at input of the fourth and seventh cores
 9
Nyquist-pulse shaping Nyquist-pulse shaping 20 core1 core2 core3

Q factor, OSNR [dB]

core5 core6

BER
Spectral overlap SC WDM core4
8
Power [10dB/div]

Duobinary-pulse shaping core7

Q factor [dB]
SC WDM 15 OSNR
SC WDM 10-1 7
Duobinary-pulse shaping 10
10-2 Q factor
10-3 6
10-4 FEC threshold : 5.7 dB
SC WDM 10-5 5
5
Frequency [25GHz/div] 10 15 20 25 2000 4000 6000 8000 191 192 193 194 195 196
OSNR [dB] Distance [km] Frequency [THz]
(a)
(b) (a) (b)
Fig. 3 (a) Optical spectra and (b) measured BERs of Super- Fig.4 (a) Measured Q factors and OSNRs as a function of
Nyquist-WDM Nyquist-pulse-shaped and duobinary-pulse- transmission distance. (b) Measured Q factors of all 201 channels
shaped DP-QPSK signals. for seven cores of MCF.

for gain equalization, and the gain flatness was significantly degraded due to the crosstalk form
automatically managed by the WSS at input of adjacent WDM channels. Adapting duobinary-
the seventh core. A polarization scrambler was pulse shaping, the OSNR penalty can be
inserted at the input of the fifth core. suppressed to below 2 dB compared with the
The transmitted signals were received by a single-channel DP-QPSK signals.
digital coherent receiver after pre-amplification Results of transmission experiments
and channel selection with an optical band-pass Fig. 4(a) shows the Q factors and OSNRs of the
filter (OBPF) with a bandwidth of 1 nm. Electrical channel at the frequency of 193.4625 THz as a
signals from the receiver were stored in sets of function of the transmission distance with a fiber
1M samples by using a four-channel digital launched power of -2 dBm/ch. The Q factors are
oscilloscope operating at 50 Gsample/s. The calculated from the measured BERs. The Q
stored data were processed offline by DSP as penalty is estimated to be less than 2 dB by
follows: The received signals were down- referring to the OSNR.
sampled to two sample/symbol. After square- The measured Q factors after 7,326 km
root duobinalry-pulse shaping and dispersion transmission are shown in Fig. 4(b). The Q
compensation in the frequency domain, factors of all 201 channels for seven cores of
polarization demultiplexing and signal MCF were confirmed to be over 6.0 dB, which
equalization were performed by half-symbol- exceeds the limit of the 20%-overhead LDPC-
spaced FIR filters with 80 taps, which were based SD-FEC with the maximum number of
adapted by the decision-directed least-mean iterations of 12, namely 5.7 dB [8].
square (DD-LMS) algorithm [10]. After MLSE,
Conclusions
the symbols were decoded.
We demonstrated 140.7-Tbit/s Super-Nyquist-
Measured back-to-back performance of WDM transmission of 30-GBaud duobinary-
Super-Nyquist-WDM signals pulse-shaped DP-QPSK signals in seven-core
Fig. 3(a) shows optical spectra of 25-GHz- fibers over 7,326 km using seven-core EDFAs.
spaced Super-Nyquist-WDM 30-Gbaud Nyquist- We achieved a record capacity distance product
pulse-shaped and duobinary-pulse-shaped DP- of 1 Exabit/s˜km.
QPSK signals. We can see the significant
Acknowledgements
spectral overlapping in Nyquist-pulse-shaped
The authors would like to thank Mr. Kawakami of
WDM signals. On the other hand, by using
Tektronix for providing AWG. A part of this work was
duobinary-pulse shaping, such spectral
supported by NICT, Japan.
overlapped components can be sufficiently
suppressed. References
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