Reduction of backscattering noise in 2.5 and 10 Gbit/s RSOA-based WDM-PON

Rayleigh backscattering (RBS) causes significant power penalty in a centrally light-seeded wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON). In this reported work, the RBS noise in a WDM-PON based on a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) is successfully mitigated by means of noise predictive equalisation. Conventional equalisers are implemented at the receiver with an additional noise canceller that can estimate and reduce the reflection noise. It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed equaliser enhances the reflection tolerance significantly at data rates of 2.5 and 10 Gbit/s to -8.5 and -16.5 dB, respectively.