Laser Linewidth Tolerance for 16-QAM Coherent Optical Systems Using QPSK Partitioning

The laser linewidth tolerance for 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) coherent optical systems is investigated using a quaternary phase-shift-keying (QPSK) partition scheme. The different stages needed to partition the square-16-QAM into QPSK constellations for carrier phase estimation are discussed. It is shown that at 1 dB above sensitivity at a bit-error rate of 10(-3), a combined linewidths symbol duration product of 1 x 10(-4) is tolerable. The performance of the algorithm with different bits resolution in the analog-to-digital converter is also presented.