Open AccessExperimental comparison of direct detection Nyquist SSB transmission based on silicon dual-drive and IQ Mach-Zehnder modulators with electrical packaging
Author(s) -
Xiaoke Ruan,
Ke Li,
David J. Thomson,
Cosimo Lacava,
Fanfan Meng,
Iosif Demirtzioglou,
Periklis Petropoulos,
Yixiao Zhu,
Graham T. Reed,
Fan Zhang
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.25.019332
Subject(s) - quadrature amplitude modulation , physics , electro optic modulator , compatible sideband transmission , optics , optical carrier transmission rates , modulation (music) , bit error rate , sideband , optical modulator , telecommunications , phase modulation , computer science , phase noise , optical fiber , radio over fiber , acoustics , microwave , channel (broadcasting) , quantum mechanics
We have designed and fabricated a silicon photonic in-phase-quadrature (IQ) modulator based on a nested dual-drive Mach-Zehnder structure incorporating electrical packaging. We have assessed its use for generating Nyquist-shaped single sideband (SSB) signals by operating it either as an IQ Mach-Zehnder modulator (IQ-MZM) or using just a single branch of the dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator (DD-MZM). The impact of electrical packaging on the modulator bandwidth is also analyzed. We demonstrate 40 Gb/s (10Gbaud) 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) Nyquist-shaped SSB transmission over 160 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF). Without using any chromatic dispersion compensation, the bit error rates (BERs) of 5.4 × 10 -4 and 9.0 × 10 -5 were measured for the DD-MZM and IQ-MZM, respectively, far below the 7% hard-decision forward error correction threshold. The performance difference between IQ-MZM and DD-MZM is most likely due to the non-ideal electrical packaging. Our work is the first experimental comparison between silicon IQ-MZM and silicon DD-MZM in generating SSB signals. We also demonstrate 50 Gb/s (12.5Gbaud) 16-QAM Nyquist-shaped SSB transmission over 320 km SSMF with a BER of 2.7 × 10 -3 . Both the silicon IQ-MZM and the DD-MZM show potential for optical transmission at metro scale and for data center interconnection.