Design of Time-Frequency Packed WDM Superchannel Transmission Systems

We consider time and frequency-packing (TFP) wavelength division-multiplexing (WDM) superchannel systems for longhaul optical fiber communication. Employing very high baud rates in conjunction with higher-order modulation formats is challenging due to practical constraints. TFP superchannels therefore become an attractive choice to facilitate high data rates with improved spectral efficiency. However, TFP introduces inter-symbol interference (ISI) and/or inter-carrier interference (ICI) that necessitate efficient interference handling techniques. Moreover, phase noise (PN) due to wide laser linewidth (LLW) may cause significant signal distortion in WDM transmission, and the presence of ISI and ICI in TFP systems further complicates carrier phase recovery (CPR). In this article, we propose a spectrally efficient TFP superchannel design equipped with powerful interference cancellation and PN mitigation techniques, targeting Terabit-per-second (Tbps) data rates. First, we propose a joint ISI and ICI channel estimation algorithm coupled with polarization-recovery and a coarse PN cancellation method. Second, we investigate two iterative CPR algorithms to mitigate the distortion due to the residual PN. Third, a combination of successive and parallel interference cancellation methods for ICI mitigation is investigated in tandem with turbo ISI equalization. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is demonstrated through computer simulations of a coded TFP superchannel system in the presence of linear fiber impairments, targeting a throughput of 1.2 Tbps. Numerical results suggest that the proposed TFP design offers more than 2 dB performance gains and as high as 960 km transmission distance improvement over existing competitive super-Nyquist designs. Simulation results also indicate that the proposed design exhibits excellent tolerance to high LLWs and aggressive optical filtering stemming from cascaded reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers in the fiber link.