Long-Reach Coherent WDM PON Employing Self-Polarization-Stabilization Technique

We propose a simple self-polarization-stabilization technique for the wavelength-division-multiplexed passive optical network implemented with reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOAs) and self-homodyne coherent receivers. By placing a 45° Faraday rotator in front of the RSOA in the optical network unit, the state-of-polarization of the upstream signal becomes orthogonal to that of the linearly polarized seed light at the input of the coherent receiver regardless of the birefringence in the transmission link. Thus, we can achieve the polarization stability of the upstream signal at the input of the coherent receiver. We first implement a self-homodyne receiver by using the proposed self-polarization-stabilization technique and measure its sensitivity by using 2.5-Gb/s binary phase-shift keying signals in the laboratory. The result shows an excellent receiver sensitivity of -46.4 dBm. We also confirm the efficacy of the proposed technique in the transmission experiment over 68-km long link partially composed of installed (buried and aerial) fibers. No significant degradation in the receiver sensitivity is observed during the 10-h experiment despite the large polarization fluctuations occurred in these installed fibers.