Flexible real-time transmitter at 10 Gbit/s for SCFDMA PONs focusing on low-cost ONUs

We demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first real-time single-carrier frequency division multiple access transmitter designed to be used in photonic communication networks. It is capable of providing 10 Gbit/s net bitrate at 3.125 GHz slot bandwidth, providing data to nine quasi-Nyquist spectral groups. The transmitter is designed with respect to logic efficiency and a fine user grid allowing the operation of narrow bandwidth, low-cost optical network units. Moreover, it offers runtime flexibility, an efficient 96-point discrete Fourier transform and a multiplier-free differential phase encoder. The article concludes with a presentation of the transmitters hardware setup and an evaluation of its performance in the case of direct electrical AWG-ONU Rx interconnection and the optical back-to-back case.