WDM coherent optical star network

The results obtained with a fiber-optical star network using densely-spaced wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and heterodyne detection techniques are reported. The system consists of three lasers transmitting at optical frequencies around 234000 GHz, spaced at a frequency interval of 300 MHz. The lasers are frequency-shift-key (FSK) modulated at 45 Mb/s. A 4×4 optical star coupler combines the three optical signals. The WDM signals received from one of the four outputs of the star coupler are demultiplexed by a heterodyne receiver. The minimum received optical power needed to obtain a bit-error rate of 10^-9 is -61 dBm or 113 photon/bit, which is 4.5 dB from the shot noise limit. The degradation caused by co-channel interference was measured and found to be negligible when the channels, modulated at 45 Mb/s, are spaced by more than 130 MHz in the IF domain. These results indicate that a WDM coherent optical star network of this type has a potential throughput of 4500 Gb/s