Toward a Low-cost, Low-power, Low-complexity DAC-based Multilevel (M-ary QAM) Coherent Transmitter using Compact Linear Optical Field Modulator

摘要

In this invited paper, we summarize the current developments in linear optical field modulators (LOFMs) for coherent multilevel optical transmitters. Our focus is the presentation of a new, novel LOFM design that provides beneficial and necessary features such as lowest hardware component counts, lowered insertion loss, smaller RF power consumption, smaller footprint, simple structure, and lowered cost. We refer to this modulator as called Double-Pass LOFM (DP-LOFM) that becomes the building block for high-performance, linear Dual-Polarization, In-Phase-Quadrature-Phase (DP-IQ) modulator. We analyze its performance in term of slope linearity, and present one of its unique feature - a built-in compensation functionality that no other linear modulators possessed till now.