Low-cost transmitter for flexible-format generation up to 16-QAM for spectral-efficiency conscious PONs

A flexible-format EAM/SOA-transmitter for coherent PONs with spectral efficiencies of up to 4 bits/symbol, delivering up to 4 Gb/s per-user bandwidth over 34-49dB loss budget, is demonstrated. We show that its constellational multiplicity can be exploited for energy-aware throughput optimization.