SOA Assisted Wavelength Reusing for 25G Colorless PON With Low-Cost 10G EAM

This paper demonstrates a C-band 25G colorless passive optical network (PON) based on semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and 10G electro-absorption modulator (EAM). The experimental results show that the SOA in the optical network unit (ONU) can erase the downlink signal by taking advantage of the gain saturation feature, realizing the reuse of downstream wavelength. Meanwhile, the SOA gain can compensate for the EAM loss by optimizing the current and injection power. Apart from this, equalization algorithms at the optical line terminal are investigated for linear and nonlinear impairments compensation. Besides, the system robustness to the ASE and the maximum transmission speed are also evaluated. Finally, the system capacity can reach up to 25 Gbps with NRZ format at a bit-error ratio threshold of 2 × 10
⁻²
, proving that this system is a promising technology for future high-speed colorless 2 × 25G or 4 × 25G Wavelength division Multiplexing (WDM) PON system.