Ultrahigh-Net-Bitrate 363 Gbit/s PAM-8 and 279 Gbit/s Polybinary Optical Transmission Using Plasmonic Mach-Zehnder Modulator

Abstract

We summarize our experimental exploration of the capabilities of an ultrabroad-bandwidth plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM), in an intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) system for short-reach optical transmission up to 10 km. We study modulation, transmission, and reception of ultrahighsymbol-rate (up to 304 GBd) multi-level optical signals with two different signaling schemes: pulse amplitude modulation (PAM), with up to 8 amplitude levels and partial-response-encoded binary (polybinary) modulation with memory length up to 4. By mapping the performance to a concatenated soft-decision (SD) and harddecision (HD) forward error correction (FEC) coding scheme, a net bitrate of 363.4 Gbit/s is possible with PAM-8 signaling and 279.0 Gbit/s with tetrabinary (polybinary) signaling after 10 km standard single-mode fiber transmission. Considering an HD-only coding scheme, a net bitrate of 318.0 Gbit/s is possible with PAM-6 and 277.1 Gbit/s with tetrabinary.

Resonant plasmonic micro-racetrack modulators with high bandwidth and high temperature tolerance

“…47 ). This symbol rate is on par with the symbol rates used in record experiments with non-resonant MZMs 30,35 and confirms that our device overcomes the usual bandwidth limitation of resonant modulators. When subsequently transmitting a 4PAM signal at 160 GBd (line rate, 320 Gbps), the received eye exhibits SNR of 11.60 dB (Fig.…”

“…When a continuous-wave (CW) laser is sent into the device at the appropriate wavelength, intensity modulation of the laser is achieved. that reduces the required voltage requirements by another factor of two 35 .…”

A robust and efficient model for transmission of surface plasmon polaritons onto metal–insulator–metal apertures

“…Inevitably, the approximate models are usually limited to either certain geometries or certain wavelength ranges. One of such geometries, the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide, presents itself as one of the building blocks of modern plasmonic structures, owing to its subwavelength field confinement properties [23]: its recent applications include refractive index sensors [24][25][26], circuits for optical communications [27,28], photodetectors [29,30], integrated lasers [31] and absorbers [32]. Particularly for structures consisting of MIM cavities, such as finite nanoslits, SPP interaction with slit-end discontinuities plays an important role in shaping the Fabry-Pérot resonances [18,33].…”

Error probability of Mode Vector Modulation optically-preamplified direct-detection receivers

“…Over the last few years, there has been a keen interest in developing inter-data-center optical interconnects with bit rates approaching or exceeding 1 Tb/s [1]- [4]. Low cost, low energy consumption, and high spectral efficiency compared to binary intensity modulation/direct-detection are prerequisites for Tb/s short-haul applications [1].…”