Comparison of 112-Gb/s PM-RZ-DQPSK and PM-RZ-D8PSK in Terms of OSNR Requirement and Transmission Impairments

We have, for the first time, experimentally investigated 112-Gb/s polarization-multiplexed return-to-zero differential 8-ary phase-shift keying (PM-RZ-D8PSK) with differential detection in terms of optical signal-to-noise ratio requirement, group velocity dispersion (GVD), and differential group delay (DGD) tolerances, together with a direct comparison with PM-RZ differential quadrature phase-shift keying at equivalent bit rate. The results indicate higher tolerances with respect to GVD and DGD but lower receiver sensitivity in the case of PM-RZ-D8PSK.