Enhanced symbol capacity and loss budget employing joint channel coded modulation in DMT-WDM-PON

A joint channel coded modulation scheme based on symbol division multiplexing (SDM) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in a 100-Gb/s discrete multi-tone wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (DMT-WDM-PON) with enhanced symbol capacity and system power loss budget. The SDM was performed through low-density parity check (LDPC) coded quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) following the optimized many-to-one mapping rule. By time domain multiplexing all four 6-bit/symbol 64QAM symbols together onto the same complex constellation point, the produced SDM-16QAM can achieve a 50% symbol capacity gain compared to the typical 16QAM with the same symbol rate. For low-latency intention, the fifth-generation new radio standard LDPC code with ultra-short code length and flexible code rate is structured to provide high signal transmission reliability and a robust mechanism within both intra- and inter-SDM symbols, supporting the iterative SDM de-multiplexing. The SDM significantly reduces the QAM orders and widens the constellation Euclidean distance, which can optimize the signal launch fiber power and reduce the resolution requirements for optoelectronic and electronic components, thus leading to apparent enhancement of the power loss budget to serve more optical network units. The experimental results show that a 4.11-dB power loss budget gain can be achieved including 1.25-dB superior receiver power sensitivity and 2.86-dB improvement of launch fiber power in the proposed DMT-WDM-PON over 20-km fiber transmission.