Optimization of DSP to Generate Spectrally Efficient 16QAM Nyquist-WDM Signals

We investigate transmitter-side digital signal processing to generate 16-ary quadrature-amplitude-modulation (16QAM) Nyquist wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) signals by simulations. We first study required digital finite-impulse response (FIR) filter tap numbers and optimum roll-off factors to generate Nyquist 16QAM WDM signals. We show that a root-raised cosine spectrum with a roll-off factor of 0.1 is optimal for Nyquist 16QAM signals considering the tradeoff between the system performance and complexities, and a digital FIR filter with 37 taps is sufficient to generate such signals. Then we look into the effects of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) sampling speeds on the performance of Nyquist-WDM systems. We show that the electrical filter shape and spectral pre-emphasis have a big impact on the system performance. With a fourth-order super-Gaussian electrical filter and spectral pre-emphasis, DACs with 1.2 samples/symbol sampling speed can generate 16QAM Nyquist-WDM signals at 1.05-symbol-rate channel spacing, with an OSNR penalty below 0.2 dB compared with 2 samples/symbol DACs.