Visible WDM System for Real-Time Multi-Gb/s Bidirectional Transmission Over 50-m SI-POF

We report a 2 Gb/s bidirectional real-time data transmission with bit error rate (BER) <; 1 × 10
^-10
in a 50 m step-index polymer optical fiber link. The system is able to transmit 5 Gb/s using five channels. The system performance is tested using the most restrictive channels with the shortest and longest wavelengths in a real-time Ethernet link. The implementation takes an advantage of the PAM-16 modulation spectral efficiency and low loss multiplexers and demultiplexers, which provide an enhanced link power budget. The optical power per transmitted bit considering the BER implication for TCP/IP networks throughput is below 5.8 pJ/b. This is due to the low insertion losses <;4 dB, in each five-channel multiplexer and demultiplexer.