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I. INTRODUCTION
TABLE I
RECENTLY REPORTED 7-CORE MCF TRANSMISSION
Fig. 3. Structure of homogeneous 7-core fiber. (a) Facet view and core identi-
fication numbers, (b) trench-assisted refractive index profile.
TABLE II
MEASURED PROPAGATION CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH MCF CORE
Fig. 2. History of transmission capacity per fiber. a 7-core MCF after elaborate design process [22]. Facet view
of the fabricated fiber is shown in Fig. 3(a). All the cores were
made of pure silica. A marker was additionally embedded to
Unfortunately, capacity of optical fiber links cannot be facilitate the identification of each core. The core pitch was de-
infinitely increased. Fig. 2 summarizes the history of trans- signed to be 45 m. The cladding diameter of the MCF was
mission capacity. The growth rate from 1.1 Tb/s on 1996 [29] designed to be 150 m, so that attenuation degradation of the
to 101.7 Tb/s on 2011 [27] amounts to 35% per year, but the outer cores caused by high refractive index of coating does not
growth was step-like rather than continuous. Especially long exceed 0.001 dB/km. The coating diameter was 256 m.
stagnation was found after 2001, when increasing number of Two features were introduced to the MCF design for the
WDM carriers entirely consumed C-, L-, and even S-band of crosstalk reduction. One was a trench-assisted refractive index
the fiber amplifier bandwidths. Multi-level modulation and profile. Each MCF core was designed to be surrounded by a
forward error correction (FEC) were required to overcome this low-refractive-index layer, as shown in Fig. 3(b), to strengthen
first barrier of 11 Tb/s [30], and increments of modulation level the confinement of the propagating optical field. Trench-assist
have driven the next growth up to present. The next barrier, structure also contributed to the reduction of the cladding diam-
sometimes remarked as a fundamental limit of fiber capacity, eter, because it can suppress the coupling from the propagation
has been expected to appear at around 100 Tb/s. While detection mode of the each outer core to leaky modes in the coating.
of high-level modulation signal requires high signal-to-noise Another feature was a homogeneous structure, namely, all
ratio (SNR), nonlinearity of optical fibers prevents injection of MCF cores with an identical design. In contrast to well-known
high intensity optical signal and enhancement of SNR without heterogeneous MCFs [17], homogeneous MCFs are expected
signal degradation. Actual limit may be somewhere over to have low crosstalk when moderate fiber bends are applied
100 Tb/s (for example, 140 Tb/s [4]), but there is no doubt for [22].
the need of a new and drastic solution for the future networks. Table II shows the measured propagation characteristics of
SDM will simply multiply the transmission capacity per fiber each MCF core at 1550 nm (except for the cutoff wavelength).
by the number of SDM channels (MCF cores) as long as each Attenuation and were measured to be 0.175–0.181 dB/km
SDM channel acts independently and with equivalent transmis- and 78.2–81.3 m , respectively, and almost equivalent to those
sion characteristics to those of conventional single-core fibers. of standard single mode fibers (SMFs). Chromatic dispersion,
Thus, using SDM is promising for overcoming the above ca- dispersion slope, and cable cutoff wavelength were measured
pacity crunch. to be 22.1–22.2 ps/nm/km, 0.062 ps/nm /km, and 1483–1509
nm, respectively. Fig. 4 shows the crosstalk between each
III. SDM TRANSMISSION DEVICES couple of neighboring cores after 17.4-km propagation for the
bending radius of 140 mm. The values of the crosstalk were
A. Ultra-Low-Crosstalk 7-Core MCF means of statistical distributions of the crosstalk, which were
As mentioned in Section I, development of the low-crosstalk measured using wavelength-sweeping method with trench-as-
MCF was the enabler of this SDM transmission. We fabricated sisted SMF input/output probes [24]. The maximum crosstalk
660 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, FEBRUARY 15, 2012
B. SDM MUX/DEMUX
Fig. 6. SDM transmission setup. DCF: dispersion compensation fiber, VOA, variable optical attenuator, BPF: bandpass filter, PDM: polarization division multi-
plexing, ADC: Analog-to-Digital Convertor, SDM: space division multiplexing, MCF: multi-core fiber.
IV. 109-TB/S SDM TRANSMISSION Signals after propagation were spatially demultiplexed by
the SDM DEMUX. Each SDM channel after demultiplexing
A. Experimental Setup was selected by an optical switch with no individual tuning of
Fig. 6 shows the SDM transmission setup. Two WDM SDM DEMUX. After propagation and demultiplexing, signals
light sources, each comprises 48 odd-channel light sources went through dispersion compensation fibers (DCFs) for partial
and 49 even-channel light sources, respectively, generate CW compensation of the accumulated chromatic dispersion of the
optical carriers (1534.25–1613.52 nm) with 100-GHz spacing 16.8-km MCF. With this we intended to facilitate the digital
in total. The light source used for the measurement channel signal processing for dispersion compensation, though we did
was a narrow-linewidth (about 87 kHz) tunable laser while not confirm its effectiveness. Fig. 7 shows the measured disper-
the other sources were DFB lasers. The odd and even carriers sion spectrum for 16.8-km MCF with the compensation fibers.
were separately modulated in respective parallel dual-drive Residual dispersion was in the range of about to
Mach–Zehnder modulators to generate 86-Gb/s QPSK sig- ps/nm. After passing through the DCFs, 97- WDM signals
nals [32]. Each modulator was independently driven by two were 1R amplified by another Tellurite-based EDFA. Then
complementally 43-Gb/s PRBS non-return-to-zero a 0.63-nm tunable bandpass filter (BPF) selected the WDM
(NRZ) electrical signals in a push-pull mode. 83-bit delay was channel to be measured. Amplification and filtering by addi-
given to the quadrature-phase inputs against in-phase inputs tional EDFA (C- or L-band, depending on the selected WDM
for signal decorrelation. Polarization directions of the odd and channel) and 1.0-nm BPF were applied to the selected WDM
even WDM carriers were aligned to the axes of polarizers in channel. Finally, a 60-Gbaud optical modulation analyzer
the corresponding modulators using polarization controllers. (Agilent Technologies, N4391A) performed coherent detection
After modulation, the odd and even WDM signals were com- of the PDM-QPSK signals. This analyzer had 80-Gsample/s
bined and split into two paths (X and Y) using a polarization sampling rate for each of the four electrical outputs (
maintaining 3-dB coupler, and recombined in a polarization ) from an internal coherent receiver, which was achieved
beam splitter (PBS) for PDM. Polarization crosstalk of the
by interleaving two analog-to-digital convertors (ADCs) per
PDM signal was about dB. Time difference of the X- and
each channel. ADCs used in the previous experiment [16]
Y-polarization signals was adjusted to 11.44 ns (492 symbols)
suffered from unintended noises which presumably resulted
using a variable delay line. The X-Y skew, which was found to
from some problem in the interleaving, but such noisy ADCs
be part of the error sources in the former experiment [16], was
adjusted to be small. The recombined signals were amplified were removed and replaced by new ADCs in this experiment.
by a Tellurite-based C L-band EDFA (NTT electronics CO. Residual chromatic dispersion was digitally compensated.
LTD., FA1500QLT) and split into each SDM channel. Signals PDM was demultiplexed by a dual polarization Stokes align
through neighboring SDM channels were temporally decorre- algorithm [33]. 45-tap adaptive equalization filter was used to
lated by using 2.5-ns (between ch. 2, 4, 6 and ch. 3, 5, 7) and mitigate signal distortions due to shortcomings of the trans-
5-ns (between ch. 1 and ch. 3, 5, 7) fiber delays. Each SDM mitters’ and receivers’ bandwidths. BER was counted through
channel was coupled to the corresponding core of the MCF bit-by-bit comparison of received and reference signals. De-
via the SDM MUX. Total signal power measured at each input coding process does not make any assumption on the input data
port of the SDM MUX was approximately adjusted to pattern and can be applied to more practical data than PRBS if
dBm/core using a variable optical attenuator (VOA). needed.
662 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, FEBRUARY 15, 2012
VI. CONCLUSION
We achieved a record 109-Tb/s transmission using 7-core
SDM, 97-WDM-PDM-QPSK (2 86 Gb/s) signals over
Fig. 11. Measured BERs for 7-core SDM channels and 97 WDM channels. 16.8 km using a low-crosstalk 7-core MCF and high-perfor-
mance SDM MUX/DEMUX. The transmission capacity limit
( Tb/s) of optical fibers due to nonlinearity was overcome
threshold of commercially available FEC modules.
by SDM. The crosstalk level of the MCF was dB per
Thus, the aggregated data rate was 109 Tb/s, assuming 7% FEC
1-km fiber length and crosstalk of the combined SDM channels
overhead. The average BER for each SDM channel was within
was at most dB. This low crosstalk caused almost no
the range of – , and the BER averaged over all
SNR penalty in the SDM transmission. BER was measured for
SDM-WDM channels was . This total BER was
32% smaller than the results in [16]. This improvement was all SDM-WDM channels to be less than the commercial FEC
due presumably to the reduction of the polarization skew and threshold. SDM technology will be the driving force to increase
ADC noise. the transmission capacity up to 700 Tb/s.
Because each core of the MCF has equivalent propagation
characteristics to those of conventional fibers, and because ACKNOWLEDGMENT
100-Tb/s transmission using conventional fibers was demon- The authors would like to thank Y. Kato and I. Kawakami
strated to be barely possible, total 700-Tb/s SDM transmission of Agilent Technologies for the use and technical support of
is expected to be possible in principle. This 700 Tb/s will be their latest optical modulation analyzer. The authors would
the next barrier from now, and farther increase of the transmis- also like to thank T. Makino, H. Sumimoto, T. Hashimoto, and
sion capacity will require increased number of SDM channels M. Kurihara for their technical contributions.
664 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 30, NO. 4, FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Atsushi Kanno received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in science from the Tetsuya Hayashi (M’10) was born in Tochigi, Japan, in 1981. He received the
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, in 1999, 2001, and 2005, respectively. B.E. and M.E. degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Tokyo,
In 2005, he was with the Venture Business Laboratory of the Institute of Sci- Tokyo, Japan, in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
ence and Engineering, University of Tsukuba, where he was engaged in research In 2006, he joined Optical Communications R&D Laboratories, Sumitomo
on electron spin dynamics in semiconductor quantum dot structures using the Electric Industries, Ltd., Yokohama, Japan. He has been engaged in researches
optical-polarization-sensitive Kerr effect measurement technique. In 2006, he on fiber optic sensing, and on design and evaluation of optical fibers.
joined the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology Mr. Hayashi is a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and
Japan. From 2006 to 2007, he was also the member of the CREST-JST project Communication Engineers (IEICE) of Japan.
“Creation of Novel Functional Devices Using Nanoscale Spatial Structures of
the Radiation Field.” He is working on ultrafast optical communication systems,
lithium niobate optical modulators, microwave/millimeter-wave photonics, and
the study of ultrafast phenomena in semiconductor optical devices. Toshiki Taru received the M.E. degrees in metallurgical engineering from the
Dr. Kanno is a member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP) University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1997.
and the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineering In 1997, he joined Optical Communications R&D Laboratories, Sumitomo
(IEICE) of Japan. Electric Industries, Yokohama, Japan. He has been working on research and
development of optical fibers.
Tetsuya Kawanishi (M’06–SM’06) received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees
in electronics from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1992, 1994, and 1997, Tetsuya Kobayashi joined Sumitomo Osaka Cement Co., Ltd. in 1990, where
respectively. he was engaged in designing and developing optical devices. In 2001, he joined
From 1994 to 1995, he was with the Production Engineering Laboratory, Mat- OPTOQUEST Co., Ltd., where he has been engaged in designing and devel-
sushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) Company, Ltd. During 1997, he was with oping optical devices for mass production and subsystem prototypes using spa-
the Venture Business Laboratory, Kyoto University, where he was engaged in tial lens optics.
research on electromagnetic scattering and near-field optics. In 1998, he joined Mr. Kobayashi is a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and
the Communications Research Laboratory, Ministry of Posts and Telecommu- Communication Engineers (IEICE).
nications (now the National Institute of Information and Communications Tech-
nology), Tokyo, Japan. During 2004, he was a Visiting Scholar with the Depart-
ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at San
Diego. His current research interests include high-speed optical modulators and
on RF photonics. Masayuki Watanabe joined Oyokoden Laboratories Co., Ltd. in 1988, where
he was engaged in developing optical devices. In 2001, he joined OPTOQUEST
Co., Ltd., where he has been engaged in designing and developing optical eval-
uation equipments and custom made optical coupling subsystems using spatial
lens optics.
Mr. Watanabe is a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and
Communication Engineers (IEICE).