1-Gsymbol/s 64-QAM Coherent Optical Transmission Over 150 km

Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is an excellent modulation format for realizing optical communication systems with a high spectral efficiency of much greater than 1bit/s/Hz. We describe QAM coherent optical communication that we achieved by using heterodyne detection with a frequency-stabilized fiber laser and an optical phase-locked loop (OPLL) technique. The phase error variance of the intermediate frequency signal of the OPLL was 6.1times10
^-3
rad. A 1-Gsymbol/s 64-QAM coherent signal was successfully transmitted over 150km