Carrier phase estimation in dispersion-unmanaged optical transmission systems

The study on carrier phase estimation (CPE) approaches, involving a one-tap normalized least-mean-square (NLMS) algorithm, a block-wise average algorithm, and a Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm has been carried out in the long-haul high-capacity dispersion-unmanaged coherent optical systems. The close-form expressions and analytical predictions for bit-error-rate behaviors in these CPE methods have been analyzed by considering both the laser phase noise and the equalization enhanced phase noise. It is found that the Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm outperforms the one-tap NLMS and the block-wise average algorithms for a small phase noise variance (or effective phase noise variance), while the three CPE methods converge to a similar performance for a large phase noise variance (or effective phase noise variance). In addition, the differences between the three CPE approaches become smaller for higher-level modulation formats.