Performance Comparison of Single-Sideband Direct Detection Nyquist-Subcarrier Modulation and OFDM

Direct detection transceivers offer advantages, including low cost and complexity, in short- and medium-haul links. We carried out studies seeking to identify the signal formats which offer the highest information spectral densities and maximum transmission distances for direct detection links. The performance of two spectrally efficient optical signal formats, single-sideband (SSB) Nyquist pulse-shaped subcarrier modulation (SCM) and SSB orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), are compared by means of simulations. The comparison is performed for a range of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) net information spectral densities up to 2.0 b/s/Hz by varying the signal bandwidth, modulation cardinality, and WDM channel spacing. The signal formats' tolerance to signal-signal beating interference, resulting from square-law detection, is investigated, and the Nyquist-SCM format is found to suffer lower penalties from this nonlinearity at high information spectral densities. In 7 × 28 Gb/s WDM transmission at 2.0 b/s/Hz (with electronic predistortion and EDFA-only amplification), Nyquist-SCM signals can be transmitted over distances of up to 720 km of standard SMF in comparison to a maximum of 320 km with the OFDM signal format.