OW4D.3.

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OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest 2013 OSA

Self-Seeded RSOA based WDM-PON

Transmission Capacities
Qian Deniel(1-2), Fabienne Saliou(1), Philippe Chanclou(1), Didier Erasme(2)
(1)

Orange labs- 2 Avenue Pierre Marzin, 22307, Lannion, France, qian.deniel@orange.com

(2)
Telecom ParisTech- 46 rue Barrault F-75634 Paris Cedex 13

Abstract: A self seeded WDM PON solution is evaluated at 1.25Gb/s and 2.5Gb/s in order to
address optical budget, rise and fall time and jitter performances issues.
OCIS codes: (060. 4510) Optical communications; (250.5980) Semiconductor optical amplifiers;

1. Introduction
Wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM PON) based on colorless devices are candidate
solutions for optical access networks for mobile or business services [1]. Among several WDM technologies, a self
seeded reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) based approach has been proposed in [2,3] and its
architecture is depicted in figure 1. This WDM solution brings the advantage of self-selecting the wavelength by
simply connecting the drop fiber to the multiplexing element (array wave guide AWG). No more management and
control interface by the optical line termination (OLT) is required to set up the wavelength. We propose in this paper
to investigate the self seeded RSOA based WDM-PON capabilities in terms of optical budget, rise and fall time and
finally jitter tolerance.

Figure 1 : Self-Seeded RSOA based WDM-PON

Figure 2 : Experimental set up for BER measurement

Figure 2 depicts the experimental setup of an upstream transmission with a self-seeded quantum-well (QW) C-band
RSOA. An extra long laser cavity is formed in the drop fiber between the reflective facet of the RSOA and a 90
Faraday rotator mirror (FRM) which embraces a16 channel -100GHz- Gaussian AWG. An optical splitter is inserted
in the cavity to extract the laser output signal. Its splitting ratio will vary for the purpose of our experiments. The
laser signal is send to a feeder fiber (up to 100km) and received by an avalanche photodiode (APD) coupled to a
clock and data recovery (CDR). The RSOA is directly modulated by a non return to zero pseudo random bit
sequence (NRZ PRBS) 231. This RSOA has a high polarization dependent gain and small signal TE reflection gain
above 30dB at 1540nm (bias current=100mA). To compensate the cavity round trip polarization rotation, a 45
Faraday rotator is inserted at the output of the RSOA [4].
2. Optical budget performances
In order to investigate the optical budget (OB), we emulate transmission losses using a variable optical attenuator
(VOA) inside the cavity. We defined the optical budget between the laser output (output of the splitter at the RN)
and the reception of the APD at the OLT.
For such an extra-long cavity source, the ratio between the gain and the round trip losses inside the cavity is an
essential issue for system performances especially the optical budget. In the literature, more attentions are drawn to
use a small coupling loss inside the cavity, consequently a large loss is introduced at the output of cavity
(unsymmetrical splitter). In our experiment, four different splitters (50/50, 40/60, 20/80, 10/90 corresponding to
coupling losses of 3.5/3.5, 3.7/4.2, 1.8/8.2, 1.6/10.7 dB) are inserted separately inside the cavity. The figure 3
represents the self-seeded source output power versus different coupling losses (laser output branch). We observed a
linear evolution showing that the output power increases (from-7.9dBm to 0.3dBm) when the output splitting losses
are reduced (from 10.7dB to 3.5dB), which means that by replacing a splitter of 10/90 by a 50/50, we can improve
the output power from -7.9dBm to 0.3dBm. However, in the case of modulation at 1.25Gb/s, the extinction ratio
decreases with the coupling losses (from 7.4dB to 6.1dB for a 10/90 replaced by a 50/50). The figure 4 shows the
back-to-back (BTB) BER performances of a10m cavity laser versus the optical budget and for several splitter ratios.

978-1-55752-962-6/13/$31.00 2013 Optical Society of America

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OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest 2013 OSA

For the splitter of 50/50, an OB of 35dB is tolerated to achieve a BER of 10-3 (considering FEC operation), which
represent 8dB of improvement compared to the implementation with a 10/90 splitter.
50/50
40/60
20/80
10/90

Figure 3 : Laser output power versus

different output splitting losses

Figure 4: BTB BER performances versus

optical budget for 4 splitters at 1.25Gb/s

Figure 5: BER Transmission performances at

1.25Gb/s and 2.5Gb/s for 1km& 5km-drop fiber

With the 50/50 splitter, we also evaluated the transmission performances at bit rates of 1.25Gb/s and 2.5Gb/s for
different cavity lengths from 1km to 5km shown in the figure 5. Table 1 represents the OB results for the considered
BER of 1.10-3 at different bit rate and transmission reach. The green zone shows the OB value above 33dB which is
the minimum required for co-existence with existing infrastructures demand (Class B+ GPON +5dB for MUX
insertion). For a short cavity length, performances up to 10Gb/s was also achieved in BTB and for longer
transmission reach thanks to pre-electronics signal treatments as in [5].

1.25
Gb/s
2.5
Gb/s

Cavity
length
10m
1km
5km
10m
1km
5km

BTB
35
33.3
30.8
34
32.4
30

25km
35
33.1
30.2
33.3
32
28

50km

75km

34.8
33
30
32.6
29.5
-

Tab. 1 : OB measurements at 10-3 BER

34.5
32.9
29
27.2
-

100km
34
32.8
27.8
-

Cavity length
RT (10/90%)
RT (5/95%)
FT (10/90%))
FT (5/95%)

10m
7.6
9.4
2.8
3.4

Measured (s)
500m 1km
7.7
7.8
8.5
8.7
2.3
2.4
3.1
3.1

5km
25.8
47
2.9
3.6

Tab. 2 : Rise and fall time measurements

3. Rise and Fall Time towards sleep modes implementation

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 6: Measurement of rise time (a) and fall time (c) with applied supply pattern (b)

In order to reduce the energy expenditure of the WDM-PON system, the laser should be shut down following
several sleep modes detailed in [6]. The external cavity laser continuous supply was replaced by a pulse pattern
generator with a laser-on time duration of 500ms over a period of 1s (Figure 6-b). In our experiment a 10/90 splitter
was used in the cavity. Then, we investigate the rise time (RT) (Figure 6-a) and fall time (FT) (Figure 6-c) of the
laser for several cavity lengths. Measurement results of RT and FT at 5-95% and 10-90% of the maximum output
level are presented in Table 2. We observed that the RT and the number of round trip needed to reach a stable laser
operation depend on the cavity length. The longer the cavity is, the higher the rise time is. However, the fall time
remains at a stable value around 3s. For sleep mode consideration, whatever the cavity length, these results show

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OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest 2013 OSA

the possibility to awake and put back to sleep the laser within less than 8.19s as required in [5]. Such a laser could
also be of interest for a burst mode implementation for hybrid time division multiplexing-WDM (TDM-WDM)
approaches. However, for the shortest cavity (10m), the 10-90% rise time is measured at 7.6s which is largely
above the 16bits (12.8ns) limit for a 1.25Gbit/s burst mode transmission specified in ITU-T G984.2.
4. Jitter
Self-seeded WDM-PON solution has been recently proposed for the mobile front-haul application based on common
public radio interface (CPRI) [1]. One of the factors limiting the transmission performance is the jitter tolerance. The
CPRI low voltage (LV) electrical specifications are guided by the 10G attachment unit interface (XAUI) electrical
interface specified in Clause 47 of IEEE 802.3ae-2002. According to CPRI LV receiver AC timing specifications, at
a BER of 10-12 the tolerated total jitter (TJ) is 0.65UI and the tolerated deterministic jitter (DJ) is 0.37UI. Back to
back transmissions at 1.25Gb/s and 2.5Gb/s bit rates are realized with a 10/90 splitter in the cavity and for three
different cavity lengths: 10m, 500m and 1km. The jitter measurement is performed with a digital oscilloscope at the
Rx output of the APD with a 231-1 long NRZ PRBS. Figure 7 depicts the data eye diagram and the BER bathtub
histogram at 1.25Gb/s for a 10m cavity. In several seconds, bathtub histogram measurements captured the most
probable timing locations of data transitions. This histogram is also known as a jitter histogram. It is understood that
the total jitter probability density function (PDF) is a convolution integral of bounded deterministic jitter (DJ) and
unbounded Gaussian random jitter (RJ). BER is the integrated tail of the jitter distributions from each side of the
data eye and is as a function of the sampling point.
Jitter (s)
(BER)
10m
1.25Gb/s 500m
1km
10m
2.5Gb/s 500m
1km
Figure 7: data eye and BER bathtub histogram at 1.25Gb/s

TJ
(10-6)
0.29
0.3
0.26
0.52
0.6
0.62

TJ
(10-12)
0.41
0.41
0.36
0.71
0.85
0.85

DJ
(10-12)
0.05
0.05
0.11
0.12
0.12

Tab 3: Jitter measurement results at 10-3 BER

Table 3 illustrates all the TJ values in unit interval (UI) measured at receiver. The TJ results at 1.25Gb/s (green
zone) for a BER of 10-12 are compatible to the jitter specification values. However, at 2.5Gb/s, jitter results are
unfavorable. Considering a BER of 10-6 target, all jitter results remain in specified values.
5. Conclusions
Self-seeded RSOA based technology for WDM-PON is an attractive solution to provide wavelength flexibility in
access networks. Its external cavity laser capabilities are shown in this paper where optical budgets higher than
33dB are achieved at 1.25Gbit/s and 2.5Gbit/s. For energy efficient device conception consideration, we also
showed that this laser is compliant with sleep modes implementation. In the purpose of mobile front-haul (CPRI)
applications, jitter tolerance is also investigated to prove compatibility with the specifications.
6. Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the European FP7 projects ERMES and TREND and National project TELDOT.
7. References
[1] F. Saliou, et al., Up to 15km Cavity Self Seeded WDM-PON System with 90km Maximum Reach and up to 4.9Gbit/s CPRI Links, ECOC
2012, We.1.B.6
[2] L. Marazzi, et al., Network-Embedded Self Tuning Cavity for WDM-PON Transmitter, Opt. Express Vol. 20 Issue 4, pp.3781-3786, 2012.
[3] M. Presi, et al., Stable self-seeding of RSOAs for WDM-PONs, in: Proceeding of OSA/OFC/NFOEC 2011, Los Angeles, CA, paper
OMP4.
[4] M. Martinelli, et al., Polarization in Retracing Circuits for WDM-PON, IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett., Vol. 24, N. 14, July 15, 2012
[5] Q. Deniel, et al, Up to 10 Gbit/s transmission in WDM-PON architecture using External Cavity Laser based on Self-Tuning ONU,National
Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC), March 4, 2012, JTh2A
[6] Jun-ichi Kani, Power Saving Techniques and Mechanisms for Optical Access Networks Systems , IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology,
Issue 99, October 3, 2012