Driverless $400-\text{Gbps}/\lambda$ PS-PAM16 Transmission Using Packaged 60-GHz Thin-Film LiNbO3 Modulator with 16-fJ/bit Energy Efficiency

We experimentally demonstrated line rate 300-Gb/s PAM4 and 400-Gb/s probabilistically shaped (PS)-PAM16 transmission using packaged thin-film LiNbO
3
modulators with only 550-mVpp CMOS-class driving voltage requiring no radio-frequency (RF) amplifiers. Net 296-Gbit/s PS-PAM16 transmission is achieved using 60-GHz transceivers with only 15.5-fJ/bit energy efficiency