High Speed Pre-Compensated Nonlinear Frequency-Division Multiplexed Transmissions

Nonlinear frequency division multiplexing (NFDM) with the modulation of the nonlinear Fourier spectrum (both discrete and/or continuous parts), have been recently considered as a promising transmission method to combat the fiber nonlinearity impairments. However, due to many challenges in design, digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms and implementation reported data rates of NFDM systems so far have been limited to 50 Gb/s. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate a practical approach for increasing the data rate of NFDM transmission systems by increasing the number of modulated nonlinear subcarriers equipped with a pre-compensation technique. In particular, record-high data rate of 125 Gb/s and spectral efficiency (SE) over 2 bits/s/Hz in burst-mode, single-polarization NFDM transmissions were achieved over 976 km of SSMF with EDFA-only amplification by transmitting and processing 222 32 QAM-modulated nonlinear subcarriers simultaneously