Fiber-optic systems represent the backbone of the communication networks, carrying most of the world’s data traffic. The main bottleneck in today’s fiber-optic communication systems has roots in the inherent nonlinearity of the fiber. Hence, developing new transmission schemes that are compatible with the nonlinear behavior of the optical fiber has become necessary. To utilize the full transmission capacity of an optical fiber, this thesis investigates two different techniques---compensation-based method and nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT). For the purpose of suppressing the nonlinear distortion in real time, an optical back propagation (OBP) technique using Raman pumped dispersion compensating fibers (DCF). OBP, as an all-optical signal processing technique, can compensate for both intra- and inter-channel nonlinear impairments in real time in point-to-point systems as well as in optical networks. The proposed inline OBP module consists of an optical phase conjugator (OPC), amplifiers and a Raman pumped DCF. In order to suppress the nonlinear effects of the transmission fiber, the power in the OBP fiber should increase exponentially with distance. This can be approximately achieved by using Raman pumping of the backpropagation fiber. Simulation results show that this technique provides 7.7 dB performance improvement in Q-factor over conventional systems. The second part of this thesis is dedicated to the NFT as a promising framework to exploit the inherent nonlinearity of optical fiber rather than treating it as an undesirable effect and using perturbation and approximation-based methods to mitigate it. A novel multistage perturbation technique to realize the NFT as a cascade of linear discrete Fourier transforms is developed. The linear Fourier transform can be easily implemented in the optical domain using a time lens or discrete photonic components, which can be implemented in silicon photonics. The proposed technique provides a promising way to implement NFT in the optical domain, which will fully utilize the potential of NFT for wavelength-division multiplexed fiber-optic systems in the optical domain. Moreover, a nonlinear frequency-division multiplexed (NFDM) transmission scheme with midpoint OPC is investigated. The proposed mid-OPC NFDM system offers a degree of freedom to have a flexible power normalization factor, P_n to minimize the signal-noise mixing in NFT processing for a specific launch power, resulting in significant system performance improvement up to 5.6 dB in Q-factor over conventional NFDM systems. Another advantage of the proposed scheme is that the mid-OPC NFDM system extends the transmission reach without having to increase the guard interval, which leads to higher spectral efficiency. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

As the light source, semiconductor laser diodes play an important role in the fiber-optic communication systems. The main function of a laser diode is to convert signals from the electrical domain to the optical carriers so that they can be transmitted through an optical fiber. Modeling and simulation of directly modulated laser diodes are necessary for understanding and prediction of their performance in fiber-optical communication links. The alternatives based on a comprehensive experimental evaluation are normally costly and time consuming. This is particularly true for systems running at high bit-rate such as the 10Gb/s transmission systems that are used in tele and data communication applications. This thesis presents a modeling and simulation study for directly modulated laser diodes for high-speed fiber-optical communication systems. The work is based on the conventional rate equation model used as the governing equation for the simulation of the behavior of semiconductor lasers. In modeling of the system performance, each device is treated as a symbolic node that takes input signal and generates output signal all in time domain. For the semiconductor lasers, the original signals in electrical domain are taken as the input while the modulated lights in optical domain are as the output. The rate equations then link the output to the input. For any given time domain signal input, the modulated light (power and wavelength) as the output is calculated through the solutions of the rate equations. In seeking for the solution to the rate equations, we utilized a numerical approach to solve the rate equations which are a system of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations where analytical solution does not generally exist. In this work, a comprehensive study on the behavior of semiconductor lasers has been performed through static and dynamic analyses of the rate equations. The noise characteristic is also examined as it may become a major concern in some applications for the noise of the directly modulated laser transmitter may cause degradation to the signals and therefore lead to system penalty. Further, the numerical models and simulators developed for semiconductor lasers are incorporated into a general simulation platform on which similar models and simulators for other optoelectronic and optical components are connected to form a system-level simulator for point-to-point multiple channel fiber-optical communication links. This platform is capable of handling different system configurations with different component selection options. It simulates the time domain waveform in any point along the signal transmission path following a strict data-flow approach; i.e., the simulation is performed sample-by-sample on “real time” rather than frame-by-frame at “flush” mode. Finally, the simulation results, both on the device level and on the system level, have been compared with the experimental data and the results from other models in literature and found qualitative agreement. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)