Adjacent crosstalk suppression in a colorless WDM passive optical network

Area of Science:

• Optical communication networks
• Photonics and optical devices

Background:

• Wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical networks (WDM-PONs) are crucial for high-bandwidth fiber optic communication.
• Arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) are key components in WDM-PONs but are susceptible to wavelength misalignment, causing adjacent channel crosstalk.
• Adjacent channel crosstalk degrades signal quality and limits network performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and demonstrate a novel WDM-PON scheme for suppressing adjacent crosstalk.
• To mitigate the effects of wavelength misalignment in AWGs between the central office (CO) and remote node (RN).

Main Methods:

• The proposed scheme utilizes interleavers and wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) filters to allocate distinct wavelength bands to adjacent AWG channels.
• Experimental setup to test the WDM-PON scheme under conditions of AWG misalignment.
• Transmission performance was evaluated using a 155 Mb/s data stream.

Main Results:

• Successful suppression of adjacent crosstalk was achieved through the proposed band allocation strategy.
• Error-free transmission was demonstrated with a power penalty of less than 0.7 dB.
• The scheme effectively compensated for an AWG misalignment of 0.3 nm.

Conclusions:

• The novel WDM-PON scheme effectively suppresses adjacent crosstalk caused by AWG wavelength misalignment.
• This approach enables robust optical network performance even with component imperfections.
• The demonstrated technique offers a practical solution for improving the reliability of WDM-PON systems.