A novel in-band OSNR monitoring technique based on fractional Fourier transform of LFM signal

We propose a novel in-band optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring technique in digital coherent receiver based on fractional Fourier transform (FrFT), which employs the power aggregation property of linear frequency modulation (LFM) signal in fractional domain. In our method, the LFM signal with extremely low power is added on the data signal. Thus, the received signal exists a peak in fractional domain, which can be used to indirectly differentiate the data signal power from noise thereby calculating the OSNR. Meanwhile, the proposed technique does not occupy additional spectrum resource and avoids any additional hardware on top of the standard digital coherent receiver. Experimental results of a 10 Gbaud quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) system show that the proposed technique is highly accurate, with the monitoring error less than 0.55 dB in the OSNR range of 9-29 dB for back-to-back transmission and 0.9 dB in the OSNR range of 11-25 dB for 960 km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) transmission.