Spatial-domain-based multidimensional modulation for multi-Tb/s serial optical transmission

The multidimensional channel capacity studies indicate that the employment of multiple photon degrees of freedom-such as subcarrier, amplitude, phase, polarization, and space-can improve the spectral efficiency by several orders of magnitude higher than that claimed in any fiber-optic experiment reported to date. This dramatic increase in spectral efficiency through multiple photon degrees of freedom can provide revolutionary capabilities for future optical networks. Moreover, photons can carry both spin angular momentum (SAM) associated with polarization, and orbital angular momentum (OAM) associated with the azimuthal phase of the complex electric field. Because OAM eigenstates are orthogonal, an arbitrary number of bits per photon can be transmitted in principle. The ability to generate the OAM modes, such as Bessel modes, in multimode fibers (MMFs) will allow realization of fiber-optic communication networks with ultra-high bits-per-photon efficiencies. To this end, we propose here a spatial-domain-based multidimensional coded-modulation scheme as an enabling technology for multi-Tb/s serial optical transport. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed scheme, we show that an eight-dimensional (8D) spatial-domain-based coded modulation scheme outperforms a priorart 128-point 4D scheme by 3.88 dB at BER of 10(-8) while providing 120 Gb/s higher aggregate information bit rate. The proposed 8D scheme also outperforms its conventional polarization-multiplexed QAM counterpart by even a larger, and indeed striking, margin of 8.39 dB (also at the BER of 10(-8)). (C)2011 Optical Society of America