Intra- and inter-datacentre converged networks utilising Kramers-Kronig receivers

Intra- and inter-datacentre traffic is now exploding. To process both kinds of traffic cost-effectively, intra- and inter-datacentre converged network architectures that use cost-effective transponders are needed. In this paper, we propose a novel network architecture based on Kramers-Kronig (KK) receivers. KK-receiver-based systems can handle both intra- and inter-datacentre traffic more cost-effectively than coherent systems and attain higher transmission quality than legacy non-coherent systems. To confirm the feasibility of our proposed network architecture, we construct part of a 640×640 optical circuit switch and evaluate its performance when handling intra-datacentre traffic and inter-datacentre traffic; chromatic dispersion is managed in the receiver-side digital signal processing. 80 wavelengths in the C-band are fully evaluated through bit-error-ratio measurements.