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Exabit optical communication explored using 3M scheme

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2014 Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53 08MA01
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REVIEW PAPER

Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 53, 08MA01 (2014)

http://dx.doi.org/10.7567/JJAP.53.08MA01

Exabit optical communication explored using 3M scheme

Masataka Nakazawa
Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan
Received February 12, 2014; accepted March 24, 2014; published online July 3, 2014

Introduction

The capacity of the optical communication infrastructure in

backbone networks has increased 1000-fold over the last 20
years, and this has been made possible by the development of
the erbium-doped ber amplier (EDFA) and wavelength
division multiplexing (WDM).1) Despite such rapid progress,
information capacity is still growing at an annual rate of 40%,
which means that in 20 years we will need petabit/s or
even exabit/s optical communication. However, it is widely
recognized that the maximum transmission capacity of a
single strand of ber is rapidly approaching its limit at
100 Tbit/s owing to optical power limitations imposed by
the ber fuse phenomenon2) and the nite transmission
bandwidth determined by EDFAs. This situation is depicted
in Fig. 1.
To explore breakthrough technologies that will enable us
to exceed these limits and achieve a giant leap, we launched
a collaborative study group called EXtremely Advanced
Transmission (EXAT) in Japan in 2008, and advocated the
promotion of the three M technologies as shown in
Fig. 2.3) The rst M technology is a multi-level modulation
format, which enables us to achieve a high spectral efciency
comparable to that of wireless communication. The second
M technology is multi-core ber (MCF), which employs
space division multiplexing (SDM). The third M technology is mode division multiplexing in which multi-input and
multi-output (MIMO) technology, which originated from
wireless communication, will be useful for handling multimodes in multi-core/multi-mode bers. These multi
technologies have attracted considerable interest from
researchers worldwide, and intensive efforts have been made
to pursue these goals. As a result, a number of studies on the
three M technologies have been reported simultaneously at
recent conferences, and rapid and substantial progress has
been made in these elds.433)
In this paper, we describe recent challenges and the efforts
we have made towards a hardware paradigm shift in the
optical communication infrastructure by employing the
multi technologies. This includes ultra multilevel coherent
transmission including 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and an ultrahigh-speed and spectrally efcient
transmission using optical Nyquist pulses, ultralow-crosstalk
MCF and its application to SDM transmission, and mode
division multiplexing with MIMO technology.

Increase in Internet Traffic in Japan

120

1E

Internet traffic [Gbit/s]

1.

Link Capacity / fiber(s) [bps]

The capacity of the optical communication infrastructure in backbone networks has increased 1000-fold over the last 20 years. Despite this rapid
progress, internet trafc is continuing to grow at an annual rate of 40%. This means that in 20 years, we will need petabit/s or even exabit/s optical
communication. In this paper, we present recent challenges and efforts toward achieving a hardware paradigm shift to overcome the capacity
limitation imposed by the current optical communication infrastructure. We will overview the latest advances on the three multi technologies, i.e.,
multi-level transmission with ultrahigh spectral efciency, space division multiplexing in multi-core bers, and mode division multiplexing with
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

100

1 Tbit/s@2009

80

40% increase per year

1P

1E
2nd Innovation
Multi-level coherent transmission
Multi-core fiber
Multi-mode control

60
40
20

1P

0
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Year

Optical power limitation

Bandwidth limitation of
optical amplifiers

100T
WDM

1st Innovation
EDFA, WDM

1T

Moores Law

1G

400M

1.6G

10Gx80

EDFA
10G
2.4G

1T
40G 100G

TDM

1G

100M

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

Fiscal Year
Fig. 1. (Color online) Technological overview of optical ber
transmission.

Fig. 2. (Color online) 3M technologies for achieving >1000 capacity

and throughput.

2. First M: Multi-level coherent transmission with

an ultrahigh spectral efciency

Achieving an ultrahigh spectral efciency (SE) toward the

Shannon limit is one of the targets of our three-M
breakthrough technologies, which allows us to expand the
total WDM capacity within a nite optical amplication
bandwidth. Of the various available formats, M-ary QAM is
capable of approaching the Shannon limit most closely by
increasing the multiplicity M. QAM is a modulation format
that combines two carriers whose amplitudes are modulated

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REVIEW PAPER

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

0

10-2

10

10-3
-1

10

Shannon limit
(R=0.8, Hard decision)

BERout

1024 QAM

-3

10

10-11
4

10-9

256QAM
-5

10

64 QAM
16 QAM

-6

10

10

15

20

25

10-7
10-8

512QAM

-4

10

10-6

30

FEC (3rd gen)

10-10

10-5

-2

10

BER

Uncoded

10-4

Fig. 4. (Color online) Relationship between BER after FEC and Q value
without FEC.34)

Fig. 3. (Color online) BER of 161024 QAM as a function of Eb/N0.

12 Gsample/s

C2H2 Frequency EDFA

Stabilized Fiber
Laser

QAM signal

IQ Mod.
X

PC

PC

75 km SLA

2.03 GHz

PC Att

Amplifier

75 km SLA

Pilot signal

3 Gsymbol/s 1024 QAM signal

w/ Nyquist raised cosine filter (roll off = 0.35)
w/ FDE

Intensity

Arbitrary
Waveform
Generator

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Qin (dB)

Eb/N0 [dB]

OFS
(fOFS=2.03 GHz)

Att

PBC

90Optical Hybrid

Prec

PC
90

Optical filter (0.7 nm)

Raman
Raman
-1 dBm Pump -1 dBm Pump

90
PC

PC

Optical Filter
(3.5 nm)
Att

A/D

B-PD
B-PD

A/D
A/D

DBM
PD

PC

A/D

B-PD

Digital Signal
Processor
Y

Etalon

PC: Polarization Controller

OFS: Optical Frequency Shifter
PBC: Polarization Beam Combiner
SSMF: Standard Single-mode Fiber
DBM: Double Balanced Mixer
B-PD: Balanced Photo-Detector

B-PD

Feedback
Circuit

Synthesizer
fsyn=2.03 GHz
Local
Oscillator

Optical Filter ( 2.5 nm) (Tunable Fiber Laser)

Fig. 5. Experimental setup for 1024 QAM (60 Gbit/s) coherent transmission over 150 km.

independently with the same optical frequency and whose

phases are 90 degrees apart. A 2N QAM signal represents N
bits, so it has N times the spectral efciency compared with
OOK.
The challenge with respect to a higher QAM multiplicity is
to meet higher SNR and phase noise tolerance requirements.
Figure 3 shows the relationship between Eb/N0 and the
theoretical bit error rate (BER) for M-ary QAM. For a BER of
2 103, the required Eb/N0 values are 21 and 24 dB for 512
and 1024 QAM, which corresponds to SNRs of 30.5 and
34 dB, respectively. To realize a better BER performance with
a lower Eb/N0, the forward error correction (FEC) technique
has been developed. Figure 4 shows the BER after applying
FEC vs the input Q value without FEC, Qin.34) Qin is the SNR
given by
Qin

I1  I0
1 0

where I1 and I0 are the mean values and 1 and 0 are the
standard deviations of the bits corresponding to 1 and 0,

respectively. Here, the Shannon limit describes the lowest Qin

value needed to achieve an innitely low BER by employing
FEC under a certain code rate R:
R 1 BERin log2 BERin 1  BERin log2 1  BERin
 
1
Qin
BERin erfc p
2
2
2
which is known as Shannons second theorem or the noisychannel coding theorem.35,36) This provides the ultimate limit
for the minimum Q value needed to achieve an innitely low
BER. Recently, third generation FEC, namely a turbo block
code with a soft decision, has been developed that enables us
to realize BER performance very close to the Shannon limit.
This indicates the possibility of realizing ultrahigh spectral
efciency by combining QAM and FEC.
Here we describe our recent demonstration of a 1024
QAM transmission, in which a polarization-multiplexed
60 Gbit/s signal was transmitted over 150 km.4) Figure 5
shows the experimental setup. As a coherent light source, we
used a 1.5 m acetylene frequency-stabilized ber ring laser

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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

=0

= 0.5

= 0.5

=1

=1
=0

(a)

(b)

Fig. 6. (Color online) Transfer function (a) and impulse response (b) of a raised-cosine Nyquist lter for = 0, 0.5, and 1.

-1

10

Back-to-back (X)
Back-to-back (Y)
After 150km transmission (X)
After 150km transmission (Y)

-2

10

BER

FEC threshold
-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-30

-25

-20

-15

Received Power [dBm]

-10

Back-to-back

After 150 km transmission

(b)

(a)

Fig. 7. (Color online) Experimental results for 60 Gbit/s 1024 QAM transmission. (a) BER characteristics. (b) Constellations before and after transmission.

with a linewidth of 4 kHz.37) The output of the laser was

modulated at an IQ modulator with a 3 Gsymbol/s 1024
QAM baseband signal produced by an arbitrary waveform
generator (AWG) operating at 12 Gsample/s. We employed
a raised-cosine Nyquist lter at the AWG using a software
program to reduce the bandwidth of the QAM signal. It is
well known in the microwave communication eld that a
Nyquist lter is very useful for reducing the bandwidth of
a data signal without introducing intersymbol interference.38)
Figure 6 shows the transfer function and impulse response
of the raised-cosine Nyquist lter. The transfer function is
given by
8 

f0:5
1
0:5  2  jfj < 0:5 2
>
< 2 1  sin 
; 3
Hf 1
jfj < 0:5  2
>
:

0
jfj  0:5 2
where is called a roll-off factor. As shown in Fig. 6(b), the
impulse response becomes zero at the location of neighboring
symbols. This indicates that the bandwidth can be reduced
with the Nyquist lter while avoiding intersymbol interference (ISI). We employed a root raised-cosine Nyquist lter
with a roll-off factor = 0.35 at the AWG as well as in the
digital signal processor (DSP) at the receiver using software,
so that the bandwidth of the QAM signal was reduced to
4.05 GHz. In addition, a pre-equalization process based
on frequency domain equalization (FDE)39) was adopted to
provide high-resolution compensation for the distortions

caused by individual components such as the AWG and the

IQ modulator.
The optical QAM signal was then orthogonally polarization-multiplexed and launched into a 150 km ber link. At
the receiver, the QAM signal was homodyne-detected at a
90 optical hybrid. As a local oscillator (LO), we used a
frequency-tunable ber laser whose phase was locked to the
pilot tone transmitted with the data signal via the optical
phase-locked loop (OPLL), which enables low phase-noise
coherent detection. After detection with balanced photodiodes, the QAM data were A/D converted and processed
with a DSP in an off-line condition. In the DSP, a digital
back-propagation method was adopted to compensate for
ber nonlinearities and dispersion simultaneously.40) Here,
we employed a split-step Fourier analysis of the Manakov
equation, which describes the pulse propagation in a ber
with dispersion, SPM, and XPM between the two orthogonal
polarizations under a randomly varying birefringence.41)
Finally, the compensated QAM signal was demodulated into
binary data, and the bit error rate was evaluated.
The experimental results are shown in Fig. 7. In this
experiment, 60 Gbit/s data were transmitted within an optical
bandwidth of only 4.05 GHz. This indicates a net spectral
efciency as high as 13.6 bit/s/Hz in a multi-channel transmission, even when accounting for the 7% FEC overhead.
Along with the aim of higher multiplicity, it is very
important to explore ways of increasing the symbol rate,

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REVIEW PAPER

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

Optical Nyquist pulse train
25 ps
Multiplexer
40G

Demultiplexer

160G
6.25 ps

40G

Optical Fiber

40G

40G

40G

Multiplexed
OTDM signal

40G

40G

Ultrafast optical
sampling

40G

Time
Fig. 8. (Color online) Basic conguration for ultrahigh-speed OTDM transmission using optical Nyquist pulses.

Optical
Nyquist pulse

1540 nm
1.6 ps

EDFA

40 GHz
MLFL

PC

Pulse
shaper

10 nm

640 G 1.28 Tbit/s polarizationmultiplexed

DPSK Modulator

HNL-DFF generator
2 km

CLK

Optical
Delay

MUX

EDFA

40 Gbit/s
215-1 PRBS

PPG

EDFA

Optical
Delay

15 nm

PC

CLK
40 GHz

PLL

1 nm ATT

DI
EDFA

EDFA
40 GHz
MLFL

15 nm
DFF
500 m

PD

2 nm

Pulse
shaper

PC

SMF IDF
50 km 25 km

525 km transmission
link

640 Gbit/s DPSK transmitter

PC PBS //

x7

10 nm

PC

EDFA

40 GHz

40 G
640 Gbaud

PC

HNLF
100m

EDFA

1563 nm
800 fs
MLFL: Mode-Locked Fiber Laser
HNL-DFF: Highly NonLinear-Dispersion Flattened Fiber
CLK: Clock Recovery
PPG: Pulse Pattern Generator
IDF: Inverse Dispersion Fiber

NOLM

PC

EDFA
Prec

640 G
40 Gbit/s
DEMUX

Demod.

Error
Detector

40 Gbit/s DPSK
reciever

DI: Delay Interferometer

ATT: Optical attenuator
PD: Balanced Photo Detector
NOLM: Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror

Fig. 9. (Color online) Experimental setup for 1.28 Tbit/s/channel525 km polarization-multiplexed DPSK transmission with 640 Gbaud optical Nyquist
pulse.

which are currently limited by the speed and bandwidth of

analog-to-digital (A/D) and digital-to-analog (D/A) converters. To overcome these limitations, coherent optical time
division multiplexing (OTDM) has been demonstrated that
employs multi-level QAM modulation for ultrashort optical
pulses.57) However, typical pulse waveforms such as
Gaussian or sech proles generally occupy a large bandwidth
in the frequency domain and thus may not be an appropriate
waveform in terms of SE. We recently proposed a new type
of optical pulse, which we call an optical Nyquist pulse,
whose shape is given by the sinc-function-like impulse
response of the Nyquist lter shown in Fig. 6(b).8) The
fundamental conguration of the ultrahigh-speed Nyquist
TDM transmission is shown in Fig. 8. The optical Nyquist
pulse trains are bit interleaved to a higher symbol rate by
OTDM. Here, in spite of a strong overlap, no ISI occurs due
to the zero crossing property of the Nyquist pulse at every
symbol interval. The OTDM demultiplexing from this
continuous data sequence can be realized with ultrafast
optical sampling, so that only data at the ISI-free point could
be extracted. In this way, it is possible to reduce the signal

bandwidth without ISI during transmission, and therefore, the

SE can be signicantly improved.
Here we present the 1.28 Tbit/s (640 Gbaud) polarizationmultiplexed transmission of Nyquist OTDM signals over
525 km.9) Figure 9 shows the experimental setup. In the
transmitter, we rst generated an optical Nyquist pulse train
from a mode-locked ber laser (MLFL) that emits Gaussian
pulses. The Gaussian pulses were transformed into a Nyquist
prole by using a spectrum manipulation technique based
on the spatial intensity and phase modulation of spectral
components with a liquid crystal spatial modulator.42) The
generated waveform is shown in Fig. 10(a), where the
periodic zero crossing in the tail can be clearly seen. The
optical Nyquist pulses were then DPSK modulated at 40
Gbit/s and multiplexed to 640 Gbit/s using a delay-line bit
interleaver. An eye diagram of the obtained Nyquist OTDM
signal is shown in Fig. 10(b). The OTDM signal becomes
an analog-like continuous data stream, and the eye diagram
appears greatly distorted due to the interference. However, as
indicated by the blue line, no ISI occurs and a constant level
is maintained at every symbol interval. The 640 Gbit/s

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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

Gauss (600 fs)

signal

10dB/div

crosstalk

-3

10

1530

-4

Bit Error Rate

10

(a)
25

1540
1550
Wavelength [nm]

1560

Pol-MUX

-5

10

-6

10

-7

10

-8

10

Back
to
-10 back

-9

10

Power [mW]

20

10
15

Single-pol

-32 -30 -28 -26 -24 -22 -20 -18

Received Optical Power [dBm]

10

(a)

5
Nyquist (640 Gabud)
signal

0
10dB/div

1.56 ps/div
-3

10

(b)

-4

Fig. 10. (Color online) The intensity prole of a 40 GHz optical Nyquist
pulse (a) and its OTDM to 640 Gbaud (b).

3.

Second M: Multi-core optical ber for SDM

One of the strongest motivations for developing new ber

technologies is the huge increase in optical power. As the
optical power reaches a certain level, serious damage called a
ber fuse occurs. A ber fuse is a phenomenon whereby a
ber core is partially melted as a result of high optical power,
and holes propagate through the core until the optical source

10
Bit Error Rate

Nyquist pulses were polarization multiplexed to 1.28 Tbit/s

and transmitted over a 525 km dispersion-managed transmission link. In the receiver, the transmitted Nyquist pulse
was rst demultiplexed to 40 Gbit/s. Here, unlike conventional OTDM demultiplexing, we adopted an optical
sampling technique so that only data at the ISI-free point
could be extracted from the continuous data stream. As an
ultrashort optical sampler, we employed a nonlinear optical
loop mirror (NOLM) switch with a gate width of 830 fs.
Figures 11(a) and 11(b) show the BER characteristics for
1.28 Tbit/s-525 km Gaussian and Nyquist pulse transmission.
As shown in Fig. 11(a), with a Gaussian pulse, the BER for
a 1.28 Tbit/s polarization-multiplexed transmission was
greatly degraded compared with the single-polarization
result as a result of the depolarization-induced crosstalk43)
as shown in the inset of Fig. 11(a). On the other hand, the
BER degradation associated with polarization multiplexing
was much smaller with a Nyquist pulse as shown in
Fig. 11(b), and a BER of 107 was achieved after a
525 km transmission with a much lower power penalty and a
reduced error oor. These results indicate that the use of
Nyquist pulses is very promising for ultrahigh-speed transmission. This scheme is scalable to a higher symbol rate per
channel of for example 1 Tbaud,10) and simultaneously
enables ultrahigh SE by employing coherent QAM.11)

crosstalk

1525

1535
1545
Wavelength [nm]

1555

-5

10

Pol-MUX

-6

10

-7

10

-8

10

-9

10

-10

10

Back
to
back

Single-pol

-32 -30 -28 -26 -24 -22 -20 -18

Received Optical Power [dBm]

(b)
Fig. 11. (Color online) BER characteristics for 640 Gbit/s single-channel
and 1.28 Tbit/s polarization-multiplexed transmissions over 525 km with
Gaussian (a) and Nyquist pulses (b). The inset shows optical spectra of signal
(red) and crosstalk components (blue) after 525 km propagation.

is shut down.19) The ber fuse propagation threshold is

around 1 W, and it is especially disadvantageous for singlemode bers with small MFDs. The optical power for WDM
signals and the pump power for Raman amplication has
now reached of the order of a few Watts, which is very close
to the threshold power for ber fuse propagation. This means
that the allowable optical power input into an optical ber is
approaching its limit.
The basic parameters for optical bers have remained
almost unchanged for more than 20 years, but if we are to
overcome the power limitation, a paradigm shift from single
core to multiple cores is indispensable. One of the most
important factors in multi-core design is to minimize the
crosstalk between any pair of cores. It has been found that the
crosstalk in MCF is described by coupled-power theory more
accurately than coupled-mode theory.12,13) This indicates that
the dominant factor as regards the crosstalk is stochastic

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Table I. MCFs for SDM transmission.

Number of cores

19

Core pitch (m)

35

45

37

Cladding diameter (m)

200

150

225

Loss (dB/km)

0.23

0.18

0.199

Aeff (m2)
Crosstalk (dB/km)

72
42

80
90

16

17

Backscattered
power

Reference

Optical pulse
Pulse width:

Pbs1

88
55 to 49
18

(Input: Center core)

Pbs2 Pbs3

Time

12

0.20 dB/km
Fiber length

Input power: P0

3
2

Pbs1

Pbsm

MCF
5

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 12. (Color online) Measurement of mode coupling along MCF using synchronous multi-channel OTDR. (a) Measurement principle, (b) backscattered
OTDR signals, (c) mode coupling ratio from center to outer cores, and (d) change in mode coupling coefcient as a function of position.

mode coupling along the MCF caused by longitudinal

perturbations. The crosstalk is also signicantly affected by
ber bending.14) From this perspective, heterogeneous MCF
has been proposed, which is composed of cores with different
propagation constants.15) It has also been found that even a
very small uctuation of the structural parameters results in
crosstalk reduction. Trench-assisted MCF, which is composed of cores with depressed cladding, has been proposed as
another way of suppressing crosstalk without adversely
affecting core density. Several groups have reported MCF
with ultra-low crosstalk,1618) including a 17.4 km MCF with
crosstalk as low as 77.6 dB.16) The details of these MCFs
are shown in Table I. Recently, by using a low-crosstalk 12core MCF, a record 1.01 Pbit/s capacity has been demon-

strated with the SDM of 222 WDM channels of 456 Gbit/s

PDM-32QAM signals.18)
If we can obtain the mode-coupling coefcient in the
propagation direction, we can analyze the optical power
distribution along each core, which will give us useful
knowledge about SDM transmission using MCF. Recently,
we proposed a novel technique for measuring the mode
coupling along an MCF using synchronous multi-channel
optical time domain reectometry (OTDR).19) This technique
claries the nonuniformity of the mode-coupling coefcient
along the ber caused by the structural irregularity of the
ber. A schematic diagram of the MCF mode-coupling
measurement and the experimental results are shown in
Fig. 12. As shown in Fig. 12(a), an optical pulse is coupled

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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

Multi-core
optical amplifier
Receiver

Transmitter

Triangular mirror

Multi-core
transmission line

Erbium
core

Signal to
each core

(a) MC-EDF for individual core

pumping scheme
Air-hole

Multi-core EDF
(MC-EDF)

Pump

Pumping
laser

Amplified signal

Multi-core coupler
(for coupling pump
to multiple cores)

Multi-core monitoring and control

(b) MC-EDF with uniform clad pumping

Fig. 13. (Color online) Multi-core amplier and repeater system.

to the core 1, and the backscattered light in the core n, Pbsn,

is detected by multi-channel synchronous OTDR. Example
backscattered OTDR measurements from each core are
shown in Fig. 12(b), when a 1 s optical pulse was coupled
into core 1 (center core) of a 2.9 km-long 7-core MCF with a
core pitch of 46 m and a cladding diameter of 217 m. The
mode coupling between core 1 and n along the ber under a
condition of small mode coupling can be then obtained from
the power ratio between Pbs1 and Pbsn:
n;1 L

Pbsn
2hn;1 L K
Pbs1

for hn;1 L  1;

where hn,1 is the mode coupling coefcient between core 1

and n, L is the ber length, and K is a constant determined
by the Fourier transformation of the autocorrelation function
of the mode-coupling coefcient.44,45) This indicates that n,1
is proportional to the ber length, with the slope given by
twice the mode-coupling coefcient. Figure 12(c) shows the
power ratio n,1 (n = 27) obtained from Fig. 12(b). We can
therefore obtain the mode-coupling coefcient by using the
derivative of the power ratio, which is shown in Fig. 12(d).
These results indicate that the mode-coupling coefcient
varies with position, and there is a structural irregularity that
must be eliminated.
For long-haul SDM transmission, it is essential to develop
optical ampliers for multi-cores2022) as well as other active
or passive components and splicing technologies. Figure 13
shows the basic conguration of a multi-core optical
amplier. As in conventional EDF, multiple erbium-doped
cores are used as a gain medium. The EDF is pumped either
with an individual core pumping scheme using a multi-core
coupler as shown in (a),20,21) or with uniform clad pumping
as shown in (b),22) which has been adopted in high power
ber lasers, namely the double clad pumping scheme. In
Ref. 20 a net gain of about 30 dB was obtained for seven
cores with a crosstalk of less than 30 dB with individual
core pumping. With a cladding-pumped seven-core EDFA, a
gain of >15 dB, a noise gure of <5.5 dB and a crosstalk of
<30 dB have been achieved.22) A cladding-pumped MCEDFA may have a lower pump efciency than individual
core pumping, but the power consumption is expected to be
lower because only a single multi-mode pumping source is
used. The MC-EDFA has been successfully applied to long-

Fig. 14. (Color online) Core monitoring using a triangular mirror for
MCF fusion splicing.

haul MCF transmission such as a 140.7 Tbit/s, 7326 km

seven-core transmission, demonstrating a capacity-distance
product of more than 1 Exabit/s0km.23)
As regards fusion splicing, the existing fusion splice
technology developed for polarization-maintaining bers can
be extended to the core alignment of multiple cores using a
triangular mirror and side-view observation. In addition, by
swinging the electrodes, the temperature is uniform for the
inner and outer cores.24) Figure 14 shows the basic conguration of an MCF fusion splicer. Along with splicing, the
multi-core connector is a key element from a practical point
of view, where precise control of the central axis as well as
the axial angles will be very important. An MU-type sevencore connector has been developed by employing Oldhams
coupling mechanism inside the connector plug housing for
precise alignment.25)
4.

Third M: Multi-mode control with MIMO

In addition to multi-cores, multiple modes can also offer

additional spatial degrees of freedom and are expected to
offer another potential way of overcoming the capacity
limitation. In particular, MIMO technology, which was
originally developed in wireless communications to cope
with multi-path interference, is expected to be a key element for realizing mode multiplexing and demultiplexing
capable of handling inter-modal crosstalk and differential
group delay.
In the eld of wireless communications, MIMO technologies have been developed for high-speed transmission.46) In
a wireless system, a signal is transmitted through multiple
paths between multiple antennas at the transmitter and
receiver. By representing multiple paths as channel matrix H,
the receiver can separate the channels based on signal
processing. It is important to incorporate such technologies
from the viewpoint of mode division multiplexing using
multi-modes.
The MIMO technique was rst applied to optical
communication for polarization demultiplexing, which enables the separation of two orthogonal polarizations at the

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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

Mode 1

Tx 1

Rx 1

Tx 2

Rx 2

Tx M

Mode 2

Mode k

Rx N

Fig. 15. (Color online) Mode-division-multiplexed transmission using

MIMO.

receiver without any manual adjustment of the polarization

axis.47) Recently, a number of studies have reported the
application of MIMO to mode-division-multiplexed transmission. MIMO-based multi-mode transmission is shown
schematically in Fig. 15. For a single input signal x(t), the
received signal y(t) is represented by
yt

Q
X

hk xt nt

(a)

k1

where n(t) is noise and Q is the number of modes. The rst

term has Q contributions representing the distortion in a
certain mode k. The distortion includes the loss, group delay,
and coupling ratio with mode k. By extending this representation to multiple inputs and outputs, the received signal at
the ith receiver is given by
yi t

Q
M X
X

hijk xj t ni t

j1 k1

M
X

(b)

Hij xj t ni t;

j1

i 1; . . . ; N

where hijk is the distortion when the signal is transmitted from

the jth transmitter to the ith receiver via mode k, which is
estimated from the input and received training symbols.
Equation (6) can be represented in a matrix form:
yt Hxt nt:

By estimating the channel matrix H from x(t) and y(t) using

signal processing, and multiplying the inverse matrix of H,
we can recover the input signal x(t). In general, to avoid
increasing the noise term through the multiplication of H1
by n(t), we diagonalize H in the form D = V HU using
unitary matrices U and V. Then, x(t) can be obtained by
receiving y(t) by multiplying U and V by x and y
respectively as follows:
V y yt V y HUxt V y n Dx V y n:

Each component of x(t) can be extracted by dividing the

right-hand side of Eq. (8) with diagonal components of D. It
should be noted here that the noise increase does not occur in
the term V n, as the magnitude of this term is V n = n due
to the property of a unitary matrix.
Several groups have demonstrated MIMO-based multimode transmission over a few-mode ber using fundamental
and higher-order LP modes. Figure 16 shows examples of
mode multiplexers and demultiplexers. Higher-order modes
are excited and separated using free-space optics with phase
plates for phase inversion [Fig. 16(a)],26) long-period ber
Bragg gratings for fundamental to higher-order mode conversion [Fig. 16(b)],27) or a liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS)type spatial intensity and phase modulator for beam proling
[Fig. 16(c)].28) Recent demonstrations of mode-division-

(c)
Fig. 16. (Color online) Mode multiplexers and demultiplexers for modedivision-multiplexed transmission.

multiplexed transmission are summarized in Table II.2933)

For example, the 5-mode transmission of 100 Gbit/s PDMQPSK signals has been realized using the LP01, LP11a, LP11b,
LP21a, and LP21b modes by using 4 4 MIMO (used to
separate degenerate modes, e.g., LP11a, x, LP11a, y, LP11b,x , and
LP11b, y).31) A 6-mode transmission including the LP02 mode
has also been achieved with 12 12 MIMO.33) These reports
potentially demonstrate the capability of spatial and polarization mode discrimination with MIMO.
5.

Conclusions

We reviewed recent progress on the 3M scheme, which

consists of multi-level modulation, multi-core bers, and
multi-mode technologies. These innovative technologies are
expected to overcome the power and capacity limitations of
todays optical communication, and ultimately lead to a
thousand-fold giant leap toward the Exabit optical communication infrastructure in the coming 20 to 30 years.

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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 08MA01 (2014)

Table II.
Modes

Recent mode-division-multiplexed transmission experiments.

Modulation

Distance

Mux/Demux

MIMO

Ref.

LP01, LP11a, LP11b, Pol-Mux

20 Gbaud QPSK

1200 km FMF (DGD comp.)

Phase plates

6 6 MIMO

29

LP01, LP11a, LP11b, Pol-Mux

28 Gbaud QPSK 88 WDM

50 km FMF + FM-EDFA

Phase plates

6 6 MIMO

30

LP01, LP11a, LP11b, LP21a, LP21b

28 Gbaud QPSK

40 km FMF (Low mode coupling)

Phase plates

4 4 MIMO

31

LP01, LP11a, LP11b, Pol-Mux

32 Gbaud 16 QAM 96 WDM

119 km FMF

Phase plates

6 6 MIMO

32

LP01, LP11, LP21, LP02, Pol-Mux

20 Gbaud 16 QAM 32 WDM

177 km FMF

Waveguide

12 12 MIMO

33

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