Fiber nonlinearity precompensation for longhaul links using direct-detection optical OFDM

Liang B. Y. Du and Arthur J. Lowery

Department of Electrical & Computer Systems Engineering,
Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
arthur.lowery@eng.monash.edu.au
http://www.ecse.monash.edu.au

Abstract: The use of nonlinearity precompensation in direct-detection

optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexed links is investigated by
simulation. Because of the presence of a strong optical carrier its
performance is poorer than for coherent systems: with compensation the
signal quality is found to vary almost periodically across the signal band.
We propose and explain the operation of two optical, one electrical and one
computational method of removing this periodic variation. Optical filtering
of one sideband at the receiver is most effective, but a substantial
improvement can be obtained by a simple modification to the
precompensation algorithm.
2008 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.4080) Modulation; (060.4510) Optical communications

References and links

1.

A. J. Lowery and J. Armstrong, Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing for dispersion compensation of
long-haul optical systems, Opt. Express 14, 2079-2084 (2006).
2. W. Shieh and C. Athaudage, Coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, Electron.
Lett. 42, 587-589 (2006).
3. B. J. C. Schmidt, A. J. Lowery and J. Armstrong, Experimental demonstrations of 20 Gbit/s directdetection optical OFDM and 12 Gbit/s with a colorless transmitter, in Optical Fiber Communication
Conference and Exposition and The National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference, OSA Technical Digest
Series
(CD)
(Optical
Society
of
America,
2007),
paper
PDP18.
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OFC-2007-PDP18
4. S. L. Jansen, I. Morita, N. Takeda, and H. Tanaka, 20-Gb/s OFDM Transmission over 4,160-km SSMF
Enabled by RF-Pilot Tone Phase Noise Compensation, in Optical Fiber Communication Conference and
Exposition and The National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference, OSA Technical Digest Series (CD) (Optical
Society of America, 2007), paper PDP15. http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=OFC-2007PDP15
5. A. J. Lowery, S. Wang, and M. Premaratne, Calculation of power limit due to fiber nonlinearity in optical
OFDM
systems,
Opt.
Express
15,
13282-13287
(2007).
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-15-20-13282
6. A. J. Lowery, L. B. Y. Du, and J. Armstrong, Performance of optical OFDM in ultralong-haul WDM
lightwave systems, J. Lightwave Technol. 25, 131-138 (2007).
7. A. J. Lowery, Fiber nonlinearity mitigation in optical links that use OFDM for dispersion compensation,
IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 19, 1556-1558 (2007).
8. A. J. Lowery, Fiber nonlinearity pre- and post-compensation for long-haul optical links using OFDM, Opt.
Express 15, 12965-12970 (2007).
9. W. Shieh, X. Yi, Y. Ma, and Y. Tang, Theoretical and experimental study on PMD-supported transmission
using polarization diversity in coherent optical OFDM systems, Opt. Express 15, 9936-9947 (2007).
10. A. J. Lowery, Amplified-spontaneous noise limit of optical OFDM lightwave systems, Opt. Express 16,
860-865 (2008).
11. S. Yamamoto, N, Edagawa, H. Taga, Y, Yoshida, and H. Wakabayashi, Analysis of laser phase noise to
intensity noise conversion by chromatic dispersion in intensity modulation and direct detection optical-fiber
transmission, J. Lightwave Technol. 8, 1716-1722 (1990).

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1. Introduction
Optical OFDM is receiving much attention [1]-[4] because of its ability to electronically
compensate for fiber dispersion in long-haul optical communications systems. However, it
requires low optical powers along the link, because inter-sub-carrier Four-Wave Mixing
(FWM) between the OFDM subcarriers causes significant degradation [5]. This limits the
transmission distance for a given optical amplifier spacing, as the signal cannot be allowed to
drop below the noise floor before re-amplification. [6]. Recently, we have shown that the
effect of fiber nonlinearity can be partially compensated in a Coherent Optical OFDM system
(CO-OFDM) [2], [4] using nonlinearity precompensation [7], or a combination of
precompensation and postcompensation [8]. Shieh, Ma, and Tang [9] have demonstrated
postcompensation experimentally.
Direct-detection optical OFDM (DDO-OFDM) offers a simpler receiver architecture than
CO-OFDM, so could offer cost and space savings, albeit with increased Optical-Signal to
Noise Ratio (OSNR) requirements [10]. With DDO-OFDM, an optical carrier is transmitted
along the fiber with the OFDM subcarriers, so nonlinearity will cause interactions between
the carrier and the OFDM sideband, causing the generation of additional optical frequencies.
These frequencies could cause some additional nonlinear degradation of the received
electrical signal, compared with CO-OFDM. An open question is whether nonlinearity
compensation is effective with DDO-OFDM because of these additional mixing products.
In this paper, we demonstrate that nonlinear precompensation is effective for DDOOFDM systems. However, the nonlinear interactions of the carrier and the OFDM subcarriers
have to be considered. Additionally, precompensation causes a periodic variation of signal
quality across the signal bandwidth. We propose four methods to mitigate this periodic
variation: two using optical filters, one using an electrical filter, and one using a modified
calculation of the precompensation waveform. Their performance is compared using
numerical simulations.
2. Optical transmitter with precompensation
The principle of operation of optical OFDM is well-known, and the block diagram of a
complete system can be found elsewhere [1]. Nonlinear precompensation is discussed in [7].
For the purposes of discussion, the transmitter modulator is divided into two parts, shown in
Figure 1; however, the function of the two modulators could be combined into a single
complex modulator (a cascaded triple Mach-Zehnder Interferometer). For coherent OFDM,
the first modulator is biased at its null to create a set of optical subcarriers mimicking the
electrical OFDM spectrum carried on the waveform VOFDM(t). For direct-detection systems,
the modulator can be biased slightly off its null point to give a carrier [3]: a carrier power
equal to the power in the sidebands usually results in optimum performance [1]. The carrier is
usually offset from the subcarrier band by a gap equal to the bandwidth of the subcarriers [1].
Re(VOFDM(t))

(t)

Complex
Modulator

Phase
Modulator

5 GHz

20 dB

Simulated
Spectrum

Laser

Spectrum before precompensation

Optical
Power

carrier
subcarriers

flaser

Optical
Power

Im(VOFDM(t))

carrier
subcarriers

fopt
Distortion B
image

Optical Frequency, fopt

Distortion A
Distortion B

Distortion C

Distortion C

Fig. 1. Block diagram for an optical OFDM transmitter with nonlinear precompensation.

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The phase modulator implements the nonlinearity precompensation [7], and is usually
driven by to give a phase shift, (t), linearly proportional to the instantaneous optical power,
P(t) at the input to the first fiber span. This phase shift is intended to compensate for the
nonlinear phase shift within the fiber itself. The constant of proportionality is defined here
using: effective length per fiber span, Leff; number of spans, s; nonlinear coefficient n2;
effective cross-sectional area of the fiber, Aeff ; centre wavelength, 0:

(t ) = 2 n2 sLeff P(t ) /(0 Aeff )

(1)

The electrical bandwidth of the phase modulator drive will depend on whether there is an
optical carrier or not. For example, in a coherent system, the drive will be a result of the
superposition of all of the subcarrier fields, and will have a bandwidth equal to the bandwidth
of the subcarriers (5 GHz for a 10-Gbit/s 4-QAM system). In a direct-detection system, the
drive will include the contribution of the offset optical carrier, so will have strong components
in the 5-10 GHz band due to the mixing of the carrier and each subcarrier, and also
components from 0 to 5-GHz due to intermixing of the subcarriers with one-another.
The phase modulation (PM) of the optical OFDM signal creates distortion tones that
considerably broaden the optical spectrum: Fig. 1 (inset) shows a simulated spectrum (top).
These tones can be classified according to their origins, as shown in the lower spectrum of
Fig. 1. Distortion A is caused by phase modulation of the subcarriers by the instantaneous
power corresponding to the mixing of subcarriers with other subcarriers within the subcarrier
band. There are many possible contributions to the instantaneous power, especially for pairs
of subcarriers with a small frequency difference, but the maximum modulation frequency is
equal to the bandwidth of the subcarrier band. Distortion A is the only component in a
coherent system. For direct-detection systems, there are additional tones: Distortion B is
caused by phase modulation of the optical carrier by the difference frequencies of the carrier
and each subcarrier; Distortion C is caused by the subcarriers being modulated by these same
difference frequencies. As shown in Section 5, bandlimiting the electrical drive affects which
of the distortion products are produced, hence which nonlinear products are compensated.
3. Comparison of CO-OFDM and DD-OFDM systems without precompensation
The quality, q, [6] of each subcarrier in coherent and direct detection optical OFDM systems
was simulated for a 10-Gbit/s link with lengths up to 4000-km. The Bit Error Ratio (BER) can
be estimated using BER = erfc(q/2); e.g., where Q(dB) = 20log10(q) and q is the mean
squared divided by the variance of the constellation points in one Cartesian plane, so a Q of
9.8 dB gives a BER of 10-3 [6]. The link comprised fifty 80-km spans of 2 ps/nm/km fiber,
without optical dispersion compensation. The fiber has a loss of 0.2 dB/km, a nonlinearity
coefficient of 2.610-20 m2/W and an effective cross-section of 80 m2. The optical amplifiers
compensated for the 16-dB fiber loss in each span. The amplifiers were approximated as
being noiseless as we were interested in the nonlinearity-limited performace [7]. 512 OFDM
carriers each carry 2 bits to give an optical bandwidth of 5 GHz centered around 193.1 THz.
A total of 128 independent blocks were used to give 65,536 constellation points. A simple
photodiode was used in the direct-detection system: for the coherent system a local oscillator
laser was used with a double-balanced receiver [10]. VPItransmissionMakerWDM V7.1
was used for simulation.
Figure 2 plots the signal quality versus subcarrier for direct-detection and coherent
systems, both operating with -6 dBm fiber-input power in the sidebands to give similar error
rates in the absence of nonlinearity. This is at least 3-dB higher than the power where Q is
noise limited. A 17-point (17-subcarriers) moving average was used to smooth across the xaxis. The coherent results are shown as dashed lines. These are symmetrical versus subcarrier
index, with the poorest performance in the centre as more FWM products fall on the central
subcarriers [5]. In the direct-detection systems, the Q is further degraded because of the
nonlinear interaction between the optical carrier and the subcarrier band. This creates an
image (Distortion B) of the sideband that falls on the opposite side of the carrier. In short
systems and for subcarriers close to the carrier, this image is the conjugate of the subcarrier
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band, and will actually cancel nonlinearity: a small improvement in Q can be seen for the
lowest-frequency carriers in the 400-km case. For longer systems resonance effects can occur,
so the lower-frequency subcarriers can become worse than the higher-frequency subcarriers.
It is clear that the simple theory [5] for the signal quality versus subcarrier for coherent
systems cannot be used for direct detection systems.

DD

400 km
C

DD

800 km

2000 km

4000 km

DD
DD

Fig. 2. Signal quality versus subcarrier for coherent (C) and direct-detection (DD) systems
without precompensation.

4. Performance of DD-OFDM systems using nonlinearity precompensation

For dispersionless fiber, precompensation can totally compensate for fiber nonlinearity;
however, fiber dispersion causes the optical waveform to evolve along the fiber link so that
the precompensation waveform of Eq. (1) will only be correct for the first spans in the link.
Previous work [7] showed that this effect means a reduced phase shift should be applied for
optimum performance; and this can be thought of as reducing the effective nonlinear length in
each span to account for dispersion. The effective nonlinear length is therefore a tuning
parameter. Figure 3 shows the effect of precompensation on the received signal quality for a
4000-km system. The optimum results are obtained for effective lengths between 6 and 8 km.

6 km
8 km
10 km
12 km

4 km
2 km
No compensation

Fig. 3. Dependence on Q on subcarrier frequency for various effective lengths of precompensation.

A frequency-dependent ripple occurs when precompensation is used, suggesting that the

phase modulation required for compensation is responsible for this ripple. An explanation for
the ripple is that the phase modulation, (t), is converted to intensity noise along the
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28 April 2008 / Vol. 16, No. 9 / OPTICS EXPRESS 6212

dispersive fiber, in a similar manner to laser phase noise being converted to intensity noise
[11]. This intensity noise is frequency-dependent because PM creates upper and lower
sidebands for Distortion B, which undergo opposite frequency-dependent phase shifts relative
to the carrier due to dispersion. Upon detection each sideband mixes with the carrier to
produce two electrical components that will interfere with one another. Constructive
interference produces a large intensity noise, hence a degraded signal quality. Simulation
confirmed that the spacing of the ripples depends solely on the dispersion-length product of
the system, and this spacing agrees with [11]. Stronger precompensation using strong phase
modulation leads to stronger ripples. Thus the optimum effective length will be a compromise
between how much nonlinearity is compensated and how much noise is generated by the
precompensating phase modulation.
5. Strategies for removing the frequency dependence of Q
If one of the compensation sidebands of Distortion B can be removed, then interference
should not occur upon photodetection, removing the ripples in signal quality. Sideband
removal could be achieved optically either at the transmitter (which will eliminate the strong
ripples due to phase modulation at the transmitter, but not ripples caused by the phase
modulation in each span), or at the receiver (which should remove all ripples). The extent of
the sidebands can also be limited electrically, by bandlimiting the phase modulator drive.

Rx optical filter

5-GHz electrically
bandlimited
Tx optical filter
No filters
No compensation

Fig. 4. Performance of the precompensation systems versus subcarrier frequency.

Figure 4 compares optical (transmitter or receiver) filtering with electrical filtering, no

filtering, and no precompensation. The effective length was 8 km. No precompensation
produces the direct-detection result of Fig. 2. No filtering reproduces the 8-km
precompensation result of Fig. 3, with its associated ripples. Transmitter optical filtering,
using a filter removing all tones more than 1 GHz below the carrier, produces a minimum Q
improvement of around 3 dB, compared with 2 dB without the filter. The average Q value
across the bands is not improved significantly. Filtering at the receiver, using a filter
extending 1-GHz below the carrier to 1-GHz above the sideband, produces the best average
improvement (>4.5 dB minimum improvement). Electrical bandlimiting of the phase
modulation waveform produces a similar result to optical filtering at the transmitter, with the
advantage that a narrow-band electrical filter is far easier to implement than a narrowband
optical filter.
The bandwidth of the phase modulation can also be reduced by modifying the calculation
of the power waveform in Eq. (1). For example, removing the carrier from the calculation
means that no components exist above 5 GHz. Additional simulations showed that this is
equivalent to a 5-GHz brickwall electrical filter. Obviously this calculation is easy to
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implement using digital signal processing, and is identical to the calculation used to
precompensate coherent systems.
6. Discussion
The difference between transmitter filtering (optical or electrical) and receiver filtering is the
compensation of the various nonlinear distortion terms. Removing the lower sideband by
transmitter filtering reduces the effectiveness of compensation, as the FWM products created
within the fiber will not be neutralized by compensation products for frequencies below the
carrier. Removal at the receiver is therefore optimal, because the nonlinear phase distortion
and precompensation phase modulation will have partially cancelled one-another along the
link (in a dispersionless link they will fully cancel). Unfortunately, the optical filters are
required to have a sharp cut-off, which is problematic. Receiver filtering is also likely to
remove under-compensated nonlinear products, which may explain its better performance.
Electrical filtering of the precompensation phase waveform for frequencies above 5 GHz,
removes both the upper and lower phase modulated sidebands at greater than 5 GHz away
from the carrier and subcarriers. Unfortunately, Distortion B in the fiber is not
precompensated. Histograms of Q (Figure 5) show that electrical filtering will increase the
average performance of each subcarrier more than a transmitter optical filter, but both systems
have similar worst-case performances. Coding over all subcarriers would obviously be
beneficial.

Fig. 5. Histograms of Q(dB) for the individual subcarriers. Top - optical filtering at the transmitter;
Bottom - electrical filtering at the transmitter.

7. Conclusions
This paper shows that nonlinearity precompensation benefits DDO-OFDM. If the CO-OFDM
precompensation scheme [7], [8] is implemented without modification, an image band is
transmitted which induces variations in the received signal quality across the subcarrier band.
The ripples can be suppressed by optically filtering to remove the image band at the
transmitter or preferably the receiver. Since very sharp optical filters are required, this is
difficult to achieve. Alternatively, the precompensation input can be electrically band limited
to prevent the creation of the image band. This produces similar results to a transmitter optical
filter. Alternatively, the phase modulation calculation should exclude the carrier.

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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank VPIphotonics (www.vpiphotonics.com) for the use of their simulator,
VPItransmissionMakerWDM V7.1. This work is supported under the Australian Research
Councils Discovery funding scheme (DP 0772937).

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Received 22 Feb 2008; revised 7 Apr 2008; accepted 14 Apr 2008; published 18 Apr 2008

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