Long-haul transmission of 16 x 52.5 Gbits/s polarization-division-multiplex ed OFDM enabled by MIMO processing (Invited)

We discuss the realization and performance of polarization-division-multiplexed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (PDM-OFDM) for long-haul transmission systems. Polarization demultiplexing of the PDM signal at the receiver is realized by employing a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detector. Using a recirculating loop a long-haul transmission experiment is reported of 52.5 Gbits/s PDM-OFDM (40 Gbits/s after coding) over 4160 km of standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). In this transmission experiment, 16 wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) channels are transmitted at 50 GHz channel spacing, and we show that MIMO processing in the receiver enables both polarization demultiplexing and a large PMD tolerance. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.