Beyond 90-km Reach of a 16 x 2.5 Gb/s C/L-band Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing Metropolitan Network Based on Self-Seeded Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers

This article reports the operation of a cost-effective, colorless, dense wavelength-division multiplexing metropolitan network based on self-seeded reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers. All reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers used in the experiments are packaged in commercial small form-factor pluggable modules. The proposal architecture is simple and symmetric thanks to utilization of two cyclic array waveguide gratings. Downstream link functions in the C-band wavelength range and the upstream link functions in the L-band wavelength range. By using erbium-doped fiber amplifiers to extend the reach, an error-free transmission over 90 km for 16 channels at 2.5 Gb/s was experimentally demonstrated for both directions, and an optical budget over 35 dB was obtained.