Dynamic Range of Single-Ended Detection Receivers for 100GE Coherent PM-QPSK

Recently, coherent polarization-multiplexed quadrature-phase-shift keying has attracted considerable interest. Enabled by progress in ultrafast digital signal processing electronics, it can carry 4 bits per symbol and has been proposed for 100-Gb/s transmission at a reduced 25-GBaud line rate. Several different receiver structures are possible, whose performance, complexity, and design issues are varied. In this letter, we concentrate on a receiver employing single-ended, rather than balanced, detection. We analyzed its performance and found that, by properly tailoring its design parameters, the single-ended receiver may closely approach the performance of the more expensive balanced receiver, over a practically relevant received-signal dynamic range.