10.83 Tb/s Over 800 Km Nonlinear Frequency Division Multiplexing WDM Transmission

Nonlinear frequency division multiplexing (NFDM) transmission scheme has attracted great interest in optical fiber communication systems due to its potential for surpassing the Kerr nonlinearity limit. There have been very active studies on single-channel NFDM transmission systems recently. However, up to now, few experiments have validated the feasibility of applying NFDM into wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical communication systems toward high-capacity transmission for wideband coverage. Moreover, the overall performance of the NFDM system is restricted due to many challenges in theoretical design and practical implementation. Novel neural network-based equalization methods contribute to eliminating multi-dimensional crosstalk, hence prompting the NFDM system performance. In this article, we experimentally demonstrate a high-capacity NFDM-WDM transmission system enabled by the newly developed digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. With data modulation on the continuous spectrum in nonlinear frequency domain, a 25-channel WDM system with polarization division multiplexing (PDM) 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) transmitting over 800 km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) is successfully achieved. To mitigate the undesirable correlations between the nonlinear continuous spectral components, a nonlinear spectrum equalization scheme based on artificial neural network (ANN) is utilized in the receiver side DSP. Through this ANN-based spectrum equalization, a 0.63 dB Q(2)-factor gain is achieved compared to the conventional equalization scheme. A record transmission capacity of 10.83 Tb/s is achieved in a 25-channel WDM system over 800 km SSMF, with a remarkable single-channel line rate of 433.3 Gb/s. Our work reports the highest capacity NFDM-WDM transmission up to date and helps to further explore the inherent ability of NFDM to resist fiber channel nonlinearity.

Automated summary

Nonlinear frequency division multiplexing (NFDM) is a promising transmission scheme that can surpass the Kerr nonlinearity limit in optical fiber communication systems. This article presents an experimental demonstration of a high-capacity NFDM-WDM transmission system, achieving a record transmission capacity of 10.83 Tb/s using newly developed digital signal processing algorithms.