Electronic Pre-Compensation for a 10.7-Gb/s System Employing a Directly Modulated Laser

We investigate electronic pre-compensation for a 10.7-Gb/s system employing a directly modulated laser (DML). Initially, the nonlinear distortion resulting from the direct modulation of the laser is mitigated by pre-compensation based on reversal of the large signal rate equations and the use of digital signal processing to generate an appropriate modulating current. This concept is then utilized in a novel look-up table optimization scheme for electronic dispersion pre-compensation. Simulation results show pre-compensation of up to 350 km of single mode fiber at a required optical signal to noise ratio <; 16 dB for a bit error rate of 10^-3 . It is shown that a 42.8 GSa/s digital to analog converter is sufficient for exploiting the full potential for electronic pre-compensation using a DML.