SC105 Modulation Formats and Receiver Concepts for Optical Transmission Systems

Sunday, March 21, 2010
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Peter Winzer, Chandrasekhar Sethumadhavan; Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, USA
Level: Advanced Beginner (basic understanding of topic is necessary to follow course material)


Course Description

The ever-increasing traffic demands in carrier networks, driven by emerging video services and other bandwidth-hungry applications, have led to intense research and development in the area of high-capacity (many Tbit/s), high-speed (100 Gb/s) optical transport networks. In order to enable such high capacities and speeds over appreciable transmission distances (>1000 km) in carrier networks, spectrally efficient yet impairment tolerant transmission technologies have moved into the focus of optical communications research and have led to considerable innovation in modulation and detection strategies. This course gives an overview of modulation formats and multiplexing techniques for optical networking applications, both from a conceptually fundamental and from a state-of-the-art technology point of view. The discussed modulation formats include intensity modulation, phase modulation and quadrature modulation; multiplexing techniques include wavelength division multiplexing, polarization-multiplexing and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). The course also covers optical receiver design and optimization principles, both for direct-detection and coherent (intradyne) receivers, including a discussion of digital electronic signal processing and coding techniques applied at transmitter and/or receiver. Finally, the course highlights the interplay of modulation format, receiver design, and the wide variety of transmission impairments found in optically routed long-haul networks.


Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Identify key objectives of high-capacity and high-speed optically routed network design.
  • Describe the concepts behind optical modulation formats and multiplexing techniques.
  • Generate advanced optical modulation formats using state-of-the-art opto-electronic components.
  • Summarize the concepts behind optical receiver design, including direct and coherent detection as well as digital signal processing.
  • Work with optical receiver performance attributes, such as “sensitivity” and “required OSNR.”
  • Appreciate the trade-offs involved in designing and optimizing high performance optical receivers.
  • Recognize the interplay between modulation format, receiver design and transmission impairments.
  • Get an insight into future trends regarding advanced modulation and multiplexing techniques and receiver concepts.

Intended Audience

This advanced-level course is intended for a diverse audience including lightwave system engineers and opto-electronic subsystem designers. Some basic knowledge of current optical modulation and detection technologies will help in better understanding the course. Past attendees will find substantial updates and may find it useful to attend the course again.


Biography

Peter J. Winzer received his doctorate in electrical engineering/communications engineering from the Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria, in 1998. His academic work, largely supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), was related to the analysis and modeling of space-borne Doppler wind lidar and highly sensitive free-space optical communication systems. In this context, he specialized in optical modulation formats and high-sensitivity receivers using coherent and direct detection. He continued to pursue this field of research after joining Bell Labs in 2000, where he focused on Raman amplification, optical modulation formats, advanced receiver concepts, and digital signal processing techniques for 10, 40 and 100-Gb/s fiber-optic communication systems. Dr. Winzer is a member of the OSA and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Sethumadhavan Chandrasekhar received a doctorate in physics from the University of Bombay, Bombay, India, in 1985. He joined Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T Bell Labs), Holmdel, New Jersey, in 1986. He has worked on III-V compound semiconductor devices such as photodetectors, heterojunction phototransistors, bipolar transitors (HBTs) and high-speed optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs), advanced receive-side digital signal processing, novel modulation formats and high speed DWDM optical networking systems. His current activities include ROADMs, mesh optical networking and hybrid DWDM 10G/40G/100G transmission. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.