Fibre optic communication systems have traditionally carried data using binary (on-off) encoding of the light amplitude. However, next generation systems will exploit both the amplitude and phase of the optical carrier to achieve higher spectral efficiencies and thus higher overall data capacities 1,2. Although this approach requires highly complex transmitters and receivers, the increased capacity and many further practical benefits that accrue from a full knowledge of the amplitude and phase of the optical-field 3 , more than outweigh this additional hardware complexity and can greatly simplify optical network design. However, use of the complex optical-field gives rise to a new dominant limitation to system performance, namely nonlinear phase noise 4,5. A device for removal of this noise therefore becomes of great technical importance. Here we report the development of the first practical ('black-box') all-optical regenerator capable of removing both phase and amplitude noise from binary phase-encoded optical communication signals.

We demonstrate that a combination of Raman laser based amplification and optical phase conjugation enables transmission beyond the nonlinear-Shannon limit. We show nonlinear compensation of 7x114Gbit/s DP-QPSK channels, increasing system reach by 30%.

This paper reviews and extends a method for the semi-analytical solution of the coupled linear differential equations that describe the linear mode coupling arising in fewmode fibers due to waveguide imperfections. The semi-analytical solutions obtained proved to be accurate when compared to numerical solution methods. These solutions were integrated into a multi-section model with split-steps for mode dispersion and mode coupling. Simulations using this model matched the analytical predictions for the statistics of group-delays in fewmode fiber links, considering different coupling regimes with and without mode delay management.

In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the benefit of polarization insensitive dual-band optical phase conjugation for up to ten 400Gbit/s optical super-channels using a Raman amplified transmission link with a realistic span length of 75km. We demonstrate that the resultant increase in transmission distance may be predicted analytically if the detrimental impacts of power asymmetry and polarization mode dispersion are taken into account.

We introduce low complexity machine learning method method (based on lasso regression, which promotes sparsity, to identify the interaction between symbols in different time slots and to select the minimum number relevant perturbation terms that are employed) for nonlinearity mitigation. The immense intricacy of the problem calls for the development of "smart" methodology, simplifying the analysis without losing the key features that are important for recovery of transmitted data. The proposed sparse identification method for optical systems (SINO) allows to determine the minimal (optimal) number of degrees of freedom required for adaptive mitigation of detrimental nonlinear effects. We demonstrate successful application of the SINO method both for standard fiber communication links (over 3 dB gain) and for few-mode spatial-division-multiplexing systems.

We investigate the application of dynamic deep neural networks for nonlinear equalization in long haul transmission systems. Through extensive numerical analysis we identify their optimum dimensions and calculate their computational complexity as a function of system length. Performing comparison with traditional back-propagation based nonlinear compensation of 2 steps-per-span and 2 samples-per-symbol, we demonstrate equivalent mitigation performance at significantly lower computational cost.

We extend the theory of parametric noise amplification to the case of transmission systems employing multiple optical phase conjugators, demonstrating that the excess noise due to this process may be reduced in direct proportion to the number of phase conjugation devices employed. We further identify that the optimum noise suppression is achieved for an odd number of phase conjugators, and that the noise may be further suppressed by up to 3dB by partial digital back propagation (or fractional spans at the ends of the links).

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