Full-duplex, polarisation-independent coherent homodyne EML transceiver

A conceptually simple coherent transceiver based on an externally modulated laser is proposed for virtual point-to-point transmission and experimentally evaluated for low-cost access applications. The analogue EML transceiver pair is shown to allow for full-duplex transmission and polarization-independent coherent reception with highly reduced optical layer complexity. The locking stability of the homodyne receiver is confirmed for the injection of 14 data channels and in presence of Rayleigh backscattering at 1 km of drop fibre. An unshared per-user data rate of 2.5 Gb/s is achieved for an optical loss budget of 36.3 dB, without the need for digital signal recovery.