Experimental Optimization of Power-Aware Super-Channels in Elastic Optical Networks

Power-aware super-channel optimization is experimentally demonstrated using a 600Gbit/s transponder in the SDN-controlled Elastic Optical Network. The trade-off between power consumption and spectrum efficiency is investigated by operating super-channels at nominal and low-margin conditions. Results show that physical layer and operational modes impact power consumption regardless of the spectrum efficiency. Experiments on 800 Gbit/s super-channels show 7% power saving when super-channels are operated at nominal spectrum usage.