51.1-Tbit/s MCF Transmission Over 2520 km Using Cladding-Pumped Seven-Core EDFAs

Multicore erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (MC-EDFAs) are essential components to achieve long-haul multicore fiber (MCF) transmission. An attractive technique for reducing the number of components and power consumption is the cladding-pumping scheme in MC-EDFAs in which all cores are simultaneously pumped using a single high-power multimode laser diode. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate long-haul MCF transmission using cladding-pumped seven-core EDFAs. We confirm that 73 × 128-Gbit/s Nyquist-pulse-shaped dual-polarization quadrature phase-shift keying signals are successfully transmitted over 2520-km seven-core fiber.