Symmetric 40-Gb/s, 100-km Passive Reach TWDM-PON with 53-dB Loss Budget

A truly passive long-reach, symmetric 40-Gb/s time and wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (TWDM-PON) with a high loss budget is demonstrated, using direct modulation and direct detection in both upstream and downstream directions. Thermally tuned directly modulated lasers (DMLs) are employed to serve as both upstream and downstream transmitters, not only owing to their low cost, but also, as a carrier-less modulation method, where the signal generated by direct modulation is demonstrated to be more robust to high launch power induced fiber nonlinearities compared with external intensity modulation formats with strong carrier power. Therefore, DML is suitable for applying in TWDM-PON to achieve a high loss budget. Moreover, the frequency chirp induced dispersion of directly-modulated signal is managed thanks to the combination of optical spectral reshaping and dispersion supported transmission effects, which makes it possible for the directly-modulated signal to reach a distance of 100 km and still with a good quality. As a result, a system loss budget of 53 dB is achieved, supporting more than 1000 users with 100-km purely passive reach, which is the first demonstration of high loss budget, long reach TWDM-PONs to our best knowledge.