Optical Nonlinear Phase Noise Compensation for -Gbaud PolDM-16 QAM Transmission Using a Code-Aided Expectation-Maximization Algorithm

Nonlinearity-induced phase noise has become a major obstacle in long-haul coherent fiber-optic communication systems. Such phase noise has been shown to be signal dependent, and correlated over time. We propose a code-aided expectation-maximization algorithm to mitigate such nonlinear phase noise, iteratively utilizing both the time correlation of the nonlinearity-induced impairments and a soft-decision error-control code. Simulation and experimental results show that on a dual-polarization wavelength-division-multiplexed 16 QAM system, launch-power tolerance can be increased by 1.5 dB, and the optical signal-to-noise ratio requirement can be relaxed by 0.3 dB to achieve the same Q²-factor.