NOMA-CAP Modulation Format for Next Generation Converged Fronthaul-Optical Access and Data Center Interconnect Networks

The ubiquitous use of video and gaming streaming applications in mobile and home devices is constantly increasing the traffic demand of optical access networks. In the future, emergent applications such as the internet of things and massive machine-to-machine communications may increase this demand even further. Moreover, the capacity demand in optical interconnects is also expected to grow steadily. Recently, we proposed the use of non-orthogonal multiple access-carrierless amplitude phase (NOMA-CAP) modulation format as a suitable candidate for future generation optical short reach networks, including optical access and interconnect networks. NOMA-CAP achieves high spectral efficiency, enables direct detection, exhibits a great degree of flexibility due to its multiband nature and has a reasonable computational complexity compared with competing modulation formats such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). We first experimentally demonstrate NOMA-CAP as a modulation format for split-enabled optical interconnects with a capacity of up to 630 Gb/s using 7-core multi-core fiber (MCF) and requiring an electrical bandwidth of 25 GHz. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate a converged new-generation wireless radio over fiber (RoF) front-haul with a wired passive optical network (PON), consisting of a 15 Gb/s NOMA-CAP channel (wireless) coexisting with a legacy 10 Gb/s quaternary pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) signal (wired).