Rayleigh Backscattering Performance of OFDM-QAM in Carrier Distributed Passive Optical Networks

The passive optical network (PON) using an orthogonal frequency-division-multiplexing (OFDM) format is a subject of many research works recently. Due to the high spectral efficiency, low bandwidth optical components can be used in this OFDM-PON. We quantify, for the first time, the performance of the OFDM signal when subjected to the noise generated by the two components of the Rayleigh backscattering (RB): carrier generated RB (carrier-RB) and signal generated RB (signal-RB) that are present in the carrier-distributed PONs. An RB comparison between OFDM quadrature amplitude modulation and nonreturn-to-zero is preformed.