Phase-Predistortion to Mitigate Chromatic Dispersion Effects in Direct Detection Systems

Abstract:
The impact of a time-varying phase added to the input signal on a symbol-per-symbol basis is investigated for an amplitude modulation/direct detection short-reach optical communication system. Assuming a linear fiber channel, the interaction between the chirp introduced by the applied phase and the chirp generated by chromatic dispersion counteracts signal degeneration, thereby extending the reach. It has been shown that even with this simple approach the reach could be increased by up to 135% for the investigated scenarios.