Journal of the Optical Society of Korea DOI: 10.3807/JOSK.2008.12.4.

326
Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2008, pp. 326-336

WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs

Chang-Hee Lee* and Sil-Gu Mun

Dept. of EECS, KAIST, 373-1 Guseong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-701, South Korea

(Received December 10, 2008 : accepted December 12, 2008)

A WDM-PON has been considered as an ultimate solution for access networks. However, there
were many technical and practical issues for commercial deployment. These issues were solved with
wavelength locked F-P LD and the WDM-PONs employing this optical source were commercialized.
These WDM-PON systems have been deployed in Korea, Europe, and US. We reviewed wavelength
locking technology and WDM-PON achievements.
When we inject spectrum sliced broadband light into an F-P LD, the multimode output is changed
to a quasi single mode. Then, we can use the single mode light for WDM signal transmission. The
broad spectral gain of the semiconductor gain medium enables a color-free operation of WDM-PON,
i.e., an identical ONT can be used for each user. The wavelength locking properties depend on
many parameters, especially alignment of injection wavelength to a lasing mode, passband profile
of AWG and front facet reflectivity of F-P LD. However, these dependencies can be reduced by
proper design of the laser and the injection bandwidth. Thus, WDM-PON systems have been achieved
with color-free operation.

Keywords : WDM-PON, Access network, FTTH, Wavelength-locking

OCIS codes : (060.0060) Fiber optics and optical communications; (060.4230) Multiplexing;
(060.4250) Networks; (060.4510) Optical communications

I. INTRODUCTION data-centric networks, will be that useful. Future access

networks will need to offer guaranteed-symmetric
Recently, voice and text oriented services have been bandwidths of 100 Mb/s [2] instead of only a peak band-
evolved to data and image based services due to the width of 100 Mb/s that is shared with many subscribers.
popularity and growth of the internet. This evolution In addition, the transmission lengths should be designed
is continuing towards video based services that will to meet 20 km, which is the established international
require much higher data speeds. In addition, it has standard based on distances from subscribers to central
been observed that the traffic patterns are becoming office (CO) locations. Furthermore, long reach trans-
more and more symmetric [1]. This change of paradigm mission has been considerable attention for skipping of
will require new access networks that support high-speed COs. This will reduce service providers operational
(>100 Mb/s), symmetric, and guaranteed bandwidths expense (OPEX). It also will reduce the power con-
for future video services with high-definition TV (HDTV) sumption in communication networks by reducing net-
quality. Thus the access network should be prepared work elements.
and structured to cover voice, data and video traffic It is well known that a single-mode fiber (SMF) is
with a focus on higher bandwidth applications such as the transmission medium in future access networks, since
video and image services. All traffic in the access network it is the only medium that supports high capacity traffic
began to merge to Internet Protocol (IP) packet and (>1 Gb/s) over 20 km. The ultimate goal in access
IP video will be a common platform for video services. network is to provide an optical fiber to each customer
When all services become video-centered, it is not premise or home. Fig. 1 shows four different architectures
expected that statistical multiplexing gain, as in the in access networks based on optical fiber. Among them,
a passive optical network (PON) that uses a point-to-
multipoint architecture as shown in Fig. 1 (c) and (d)
*Corresponding author: chl@ee.kaist.ac.kr

- 326 -
WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs - Chang-Hee Lee et al. 327

TV sets and home wiring. However, this is not suitable

for IPTV services which require higher dedicated
bandwidth. The TDM-PONs which has higher band-
width are actively discussed in two standard bodies of
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
and Full Service Access Network (FSAN) to meet future
bandwidth requirements. This problem is more chal-
lenging than in other fast changing technology markets
since these choices affect wide spread infrastructure deci-
sions which hopefully should last for 25 years or more.
A WDM-PON provides an optical point-to-point
FIG. 1. Four different approaches of FTTH/P, (a) point- connection by allocating a pair of wavelengths to each
to-point connection, (b) active optical network that has user connected to the PON and solves many problems
active equipments in the field, (c) and (d) passive optical originated by bandwidth sharing. The only difference
network. in the OSP is replacing the optical power splitter in
a TDM-PON with an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG)
to demultiplex the downstream wavelengths and multi-
has been commonly used due to the passive nature of
plex the upstream wavelengths. The wavelength channel
the architecture. The term PON means that there are
spacing in an AWG can be 0.8 nm or less which allows
no active elements between the CO and the customer
many users to be connected to a WDM-PON. In addition
premises. In other words, only optical fibers and optical
to its efficient use of wavelengths, a WDM-PON also
passive elements that do not require any electrical power
has advantages in its use of optical transmission power.
or active management are used. It should be noted that
TDM-PON architectures typically use a 132 power
the lifetime of outside plant (OSP) is greater than 25
splitter at the RN that results in an insertion loss of
years, since it is realized with only passive devices.
about 17 or 18 dB. In contrast, the loss through typical
This feature justifies installation costs and minimizes
AWGs can be in the range of 3 to 5 dB. Although 2
the OPEX. The PON with optical power splitter as an
AWGs are required in WDM-PON, the insertion loss
optical branching device uses many different multiple
improvement between a transceiver pair is on the order
access methods to share a single strand of fiber from
of 8 to 11 dB. In addition to the much lower insertion
the CO to remote node (RN) [3]. Here, we define RN
loss, an additional optical efficiency occurs since the
as optical branching device for PON. The most common
noise bandwidth of each receiver can be decreased to
method is the time division method, called as time
1/N compared with a TDM-PON approach [3]. For a
division multiplexing-PON (TDM-PON). As a different
PON with 32 users, this can result in an additive
approach, the RN can be realized with a wavelength
improvement of about 10 dB in the receiver sensitivity.
division multiplexing/demultiplexing device to accom-
This improvement becomes even larger when the PON
modate wavelength division multiplexing-PON (WDM-
is scaled up to service more users since the insertion
PON).
loss through an AWG is effectively independent of its
A TDM-PON is starting to see significant deploy-
splitting ratio. Compared with a TDM-PON, the WDM-
ments in various regions of the world. In this architecture,
PON approach offers large improvements in both
N users share a single upstream and downstream
optical power penalty and its ability to scale up to
transmission channel. Thus the transmission data rate
serve a large number of users sharing a single PON.
over the PON must be N times the dedicated data rate
These features are also important for realizing a long
to each subscriber. This approach can provide a cost-
reach PON [4].
effective solution since only a single transmitter and
These efficiency improvements are very important to
receiver is shared at the CO location. Currently,
the upgradeability and flexibility of a WDM-PON system.
E-PON and G-PON are deploying in the field. The E-
Since each user has a point-to-point wavelength conne-
PON that carries 1.25 Gb/s data rate for both upstream
ction, it is possible to provide different data rates and
and downstream has been used in Asia, while G-PON
protocols to each subscriber. Since each user is uncoupled
that carries 2.5 Gb/s data rate and 1.25 Gb/s data rate
from others on the PON, data rate upgrades can be
for downstream and upstream, respectively, has been
done on an individual basis without causing disruption
used in other regions of the world. These solutions are
to any of the other users. Using an AWG splitter with
suitable as long as the bandwidth demand of the many
a 100 GHz channel spacing, it would be possible to
users sharing the PON does not become too great. To
provide future bandwidths of up to about 40 Gb/s to
address these limited bandwidth concerns, some TDM-
each user. This flexible bandwidth upgradeability would
PON have added a separate video overlay wavelength
be very useful if a WDM-PON is shared with a diverse
to provide TV signals that are compatible with existing
set of users, such as business customers and home resi-
328 Journal of the Optical Society of Korea, Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2008

dents. There would be no issues regarding quality of that can remain locked to a DWDM wavelength grid
service (QoS) or privacy since no optical signals are over temperature ranges experienced at the passive node
shared with anyone else connected to the PON. An location [6]. It is also projected that these athermal
additional feature of the WDM architecture is its ability AWGs will have costs similar to optical power splitters
to localize any fault or optical loss in the fiber plant since each will use the same planar lightwave circuit
by using a single wavelength-tunable OTDR located at (PLC) technology, and the major costs are in the
the CO [5]. This could yield large operational and main- packaging which will be similar for each device.
tenance savings compared to PONs that use power Another issue is the concern of using wavelength-
splitters since it is very difficult to isolate problems in specific sources such as distributed feedback (DFB)
the fiber plant past the position of the RN. lasers in a WDM-PON system. If DFB lasers were used,
In this paper, we review the WDM-PON based on these lasers would require thermo-electric coolers (TEC)
wavelength locked F-P LD. In section II, we describe to stabilize their wavelengths that would result in
main principles and technologies of the wavelength relatively expensive packaging. Also, this scheme would
locking. Then, we describe research and development require a different or colored transceiver for each user,
activities in section III. The summary is presented in resulting in high costs for inventory management and
section IV. maintenance. To address these issues, much effort has
been done on trying to develop low-cost sources that
II. WDM-PON BASED WAVELENGTH are color-free or wavelength independent so that all
LOCKED F-P LD subscribers can have identical optical network termi-
nations (ONTs). Some of these approaches are listed
A. Wavelength locked F-P LD in Table 1. It may also be possible to provide color-free
Although a WDM-PON has many technical advantages, operation by using relatively expensive wavelength
there have been several issues that have prevented it tunable lasers if prior information of the channel wave-
from being a suitable solution for access applications. length is known [7].
One issue has been related to the wavelength stability One promising approach has recently been proposed
of the AWG located at the passive RN. Until recently, that enables color-free and identical transmitters by
AWG required temperature control to keep their optical using an automatic wavelength-locking scheme [8]-[10].
channels locked to a wavelength grid. This would have This scheme relies on providing an optical seeding signal
required electric power at the RN that would be unaccep- generated at the optical line termination (OLT) that
table for a PON solution. Technology advances have can be used to wavelength-lock the identical optical
allowed the recent commercialization of athermal AWGs transmitters located at each remote ONT. The

TABLE 1. Various optical sources for WDM-PON

Wavelength Modulation Modulation Color- Operation

Remarks
control Scheme speed free ONT bandwidth

Wavelength specific laser Needed at ONT Direct 10 Gb/s No Unlimited

- Wavelength
Tunable laser Needed at ONT Direct ~ 2.5 Gb/s Yes 40 nm
information
Solitary
source LED No Direct ~ 100 Mb/s Yes > 50 nm
at ONT Broadband - High slicing loss.
SLD No Direct < 1 Gb/s Yes > 50 nm
light: ASE - Dispersion limit for
from Doped > 1 Gb/s
No External > 10 Gb/s Yes 30 nm
fiber

External
Array of Needed at OLT External 2.5 Gb/s Yes Unlimited
modulator - Back reflection penalty
wavelength
specific RSOA Needed at OLT Direct ~ 1 Gb/s Yes > 50 nm -Two feeder fibers
laser at - Needs optical amplifier
OLT Needed at OLT for EM
F-P LD Direct ~ 2.5 Gb/s Yes 50 nm
and ONT
Seed
from External - High power seed light
No External > 10 Gb/s Yes 30 ~ 50 nm
OLT modulator - Dispersion limit for
Broadband (Limited by > 1 Gb/s
light at OLT RSOA No Direct ~ 1 Gb/s Yes broadband - Needs optical amplifier
light at OLT) for EM
F-P LD No Direct ~ 2.5 Gb/s Yes

Remodulation of Direct/ - Back reflection penalty

Needed at OLT ~ 2.5 Gb/s Yes 50 nm
downstream data External - Limited dynamic range
WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs - Chang-Hee Lee et al. 329

or by a simple broadband amplified spontaneous emission

(ASE) light source. Since this reference signal has to
pass through the wavelength passband of the AWG at
the RN, each of the identical ONTs is automatically
aligned to the optical channel defined by the WDM-PON
infrastructure. Recently, commercial WDM-PON systems
based on wavelength locked F-P LD have been deployed
in Korea [10]. It may also be possible to use the down-
stream data signal as a seed for the ONT transmitter,
(a) but large penalties result in both dynamic range and
ONT complexity [11].
It is well known that an F-P laser shows multimode
oscillation. The F-P laser output shows a huge amount
of mode partition noise (MPN) when only a single mode
is selected among the multimode output. This is an
intrinsic feature in a multimode laser with a homoge-
neously broadened gain medium. Competition among
lasing modes caused by fluctuation of spontaneous emis-
sion prevents steady oscillation of each mode in the time
domain. The semiconductor F-P LD shows multimode
oscillation as a common multimode laser, since the
spontaneous emission is almost wavelength independent
and the gain spectrum is very broad compared with the
mode spacing. Thus, it is impossible to use a selected
single mode light from the F-P LD for optical communi-
(b) (c) cations. Fortunately, it is possible to generate a single
longitudinal mode light by injecting a narrow band
spontaneous emission into the F-P LD. In this case,
injected spontaneous emission is amplified selectively
when the injected light power is much higher than the
spontaneous emission generated by the gain medium.
The experimental set-up to demonstrate this principle
is shown in Fig. 2. It should be noted that the F-P LD
may be the most efficient light source for optical com-
munications while also being cost effective.
This setup represents the upstream data transmission
configuration in a real system. The broadband light
source (BLS) and the receiver including a wavelength
division demultiplexer are located at a CO, while the
F-P LD is located at the customers premises. The AWG
(d) is located at a RN. The BLS by a pumped erbium-doped
FIG. 2. (a) Schematic diagram of wavelength-locked
fiber (EDF) generates ASE light. The bandwidth of the
F-P LD, (b) the output spectrum and eye-diagram before injected ASE is 0.4 nm which is equal to the 3 dB band-
wavelength-locking, (c) those after wavelength-locking, width of the AWG. We also used an anti-reflection (AR)
and (d) the measured RIN with (thick line) and without coated F-P LD (as a cleaved back facet and 1 % front
(dashed line). The dotted line represents the RIN of the facet reflectivity) with a cavity length of 600 m. The
injected ASE. injected power into the F-P LD (biased at 1.2 times
the lasing threshold) is 16 dBm/0.2 nm. As shown
in the measured spectrum, the output of the F-P LD
identical ONT lasers can be simple Fabry-Perot laser
becomes a single mode light after injection of a narrow
diodes (F-P LD) [8] or reflective optical semiconductor
band ASE. The linewidth of the F-P LD output is about
amplifiers (RSOA) [9]. The F-P LD or RSOA performs
0.2 nm. To see the suppression of the MPN, we also
three functions; amplification, data modulation and
show the measured relative intensity noise (RIN) before
reflection of the reference seed signal provided by the
and after injection. The low frequency RIN (solid line)
OLT. The reference seed signal can be generated by an
mainly caused by mode-partition noise was suppressed
array of wavelength-specific sources such as DFB lasers
by about 20 dB with injection compared with a single
330 Journal of the Optical Society of Korea, Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2008

It should be noted that the backscattering of the

injected ASE due to Rayleigh scattering and/or reflection
at splice or connection points will interfere with the
upstream signal. This interference induced penalty is
negligibly small, since the band of the upstream signal
(always broader than 0.1 nm) is very wide compared
with the receiver bandwidth. The measured penalty
was less than 0.1 dB with a 30 dB reflection coefficient.
For downstream stream data transmission, another
BLS and F-P LDs are located at the CO as shown in
Fig. 4. The A-band wavelength and the B-band wave-
length are separated by multiples of the AWGs free
spectral range (FSR). In this manner, we consolidated
FIG. 3. The best and worst BER of wavelength-locked multiplexing and demultiplexing in a single AWG. The
F-P LD. athermal AWG whose transmission wavelengths have
a very small temperature dependency [6] was used to
eliminate the wavelength drift induced by temperature
change.
A diplexer is needed for a transceiver both at the OLT
and the ONT, since only a single strand of fiber is used
for communication. Note that a TDM-PON also uses
an optical diplexer. To make the diplexer cost effectively,
a sufficient amount of guard band between the upstream
and the downstream wavelength bands is needed. A
conventional C-band (1530 1560 nm) was selected for
the upstream transmission, since the loss of the fiber
FIG. 4. Configuration of WDM-PON based on wavelength is minimal at this band. We chose E-band (1425 1450
locked F-P LDs. nm) for the upstream to have a sufficient guard band.
The performance of the WDM-PON can be dependent
mode light of the free running laser (dashed line), as on many parameters. The most critical element in the
shown in Fig. 2 (d). The RIN of the output light is WDM-PON with wavelength locked F-P LD is the
about 7 dB less than that of the injected narrow band laser itself. When we use uncoated laser (as cleaved
ASE (dotted line). The side mode suppression ratio facet), there exists a strong gain difference between the
depends on the injection power, bias current, and resonant case (injection wavelength matches to one of
detuning between the lasing mode and injection wave- the lasing wavelength) and the non-resonant case (injec-
length [12]. tion wavelength located in the middle of the two adjacent
To investigate the possibility of data transmission with lasing mode). Then, both gain and side mode suppression
the wavelength locked F-P LD, we modulated the laser ratio (SMSR) have maximum values for the resonant
directly with a 155 Mb/s pseudo-random bit sequence case, while these have minimum values for the
(PRBS) of length 223-1. The modulated signal was non-resonant case. Consequently, the effects of
received by an optical receiver after transmission of a injection diminish as the injection wavelength departs
20 km SMF. The measured eye-diagrams in Fig. 2 (b), from the lasing mode. The worst case appears when the
(c) with and without injection show the effect of injection injection wavelength is located middle of the two
clearly. The completely closed eye without injection adjacent lasing modes. However, the difference decreases
was opened with injection of the ASE. The measured (worst case performance improves), when we decrease
BER curve also showed error-free transmission. It is the front facet reflectivity of the F-P LD. There are
predicted that the locking effect/efficiency will be the two major improvements with the anti-reflection coating.
worst when the injection wavelength is located at the One is the increase of the injection efficiency due to
center of the adjacent modes. However, we can achieve reduction of reflection at the front facet. The other is
error-free transmission with a 2.3 dB penalty, as shown improvement of minimum fiber-to-fiber gain of the
in Fig. 3. It is noted that there was a negligible dispersion injected signal. This feature can be originated by the
penalty. The gain bandwidth of the semiconductor increase of the lasing threshold gain. It may be noted
active medium is typically broader than 50 nm. Thus, that the high reflection coating on the back facet improves
it is possible to use a single type of F-P LD over an the injection gain of the ASE signal.
approximately equal wavelength range. Besides the front facet reflectivity, the cavity length
of the laser is one of the major parameters, since the
WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs - Chang-Hee Lee et al. 331

as we increase the temperature. This effect can be over-

come by increasing driving current into the laser. However,
it increases the operating temperature of the laser due
to self heating. Thus there exists a limit on the injection
current. The limit depends on the thermal capacity of
the laser package. If the thermal resistance is not small
enough, thermal runaway exists. Another critical effect
is increase of the saturation power of the F-P LD. Since
F-P LD itself is an optical amplifier, the gain saturates
as we increase the input power. Then, the output
intensity noise is suppressed. Fig. 2 (d) show how the
intensity noise is suppressed, when we operate the F-P
FIG. 5. Experimental setup for WDM-PON with proposed LD or RSOA in a saturation region. The saturation
BLS. power is 1/(Gts), where G is differential gain and ts is
the effective lifetime of the carrier at the operating
point. When we increase temperature, the Auger recom-
bination rate increases [13]. Actually, the Auger recom-
bination rate is an exponential function of the temperature.
So, the saturation power increases although we increase
the injection current to recover the gain. As a result,
the F-P LD or RSOA is pushed to the linear region.
Thus intensity noise suppression due to gain saturation
diminishes. These features limit high temperature
operation of the F-P LD or RSOA. Thus, amplifier with
high thermal resistance or with low efficiency requires
cooling at high temperature. The RSOA needs a tilted
stripe or windowed facet to reduce front facet reflectivity
to a certain value. It increases the internal loss of the
FIG. 6. The measured optical spectra of the proposed
gain medium. As a result, it may require cooling for
BLS output.
high temperature operation.

injection bandwidth should be comparable to the reso- B. Low noise BLS

nance frequency difference defined by the cavity length. The output of the wavelength locked F-P LD has high
In this paper we assume that the cavity length is 600 noise compared to a coherent DFB laser output, since
m. This is determined by the practical consideration we are injecting incoherent broadband light. This feature
of many parameters, such as channel spacing and packing is not desirable for narrow spacing WDM-PON and/or
limit. high speed WDM-PON. The low noise BLS is desirable
For 100 Mb/s signal transmission at 100 GHz channel for these applications. The low noise BLS can be imple-
spacing, 1% front facet reflectivity is good for color-free mented as shown in the dotted box of Fig. 5. [14]. It
operation. However, we need to reduce the front facet consists of two AR-coated F-P LDs, a 50:50 optical
reflectivity up to 0.1% for 1 Gb/s signal transmission. coupler, and two isolators. The output of F-P LD 1 is
We also need to increase the injection power for higher injected to the F-P LD 2, and vice versa. We realized
bit rate transmission. With increase of the injection an unpolarized BLS by polarization multiplexing with
power, the difference between the resonant case and two polarization controllers (PCs) and a polarization
the non-resonant case decreases due to saturation of the beam combiner (PBC). The measured 3-dB linewidth
gain. Higher injection power also helps to reduce RIN of a single mode of solitary F-P LD was less than 0.06
of the output power. It may be noted that RSOA can nm. After mutual injection, the linewidth broadens up
be considered as an F-P LD with a very small front to 0.2 nm as shown in Fig. 6. The output spectrum of
facet reflectivity. In this case, there is no difference the proposed BLS looks like the spectrum sliced broadband
between the resonant case and the non-resonant case. light.
However, we need to take care of the temperature To investigate the feasibility of the proposed light
dependency. source as a BLS, we measured the RIN of a filtered
The temperature dependence of the WDM-PON single mode among multiple modes of the mutually
performance is one of the major engineering concerns. injected laser. We measured a similar RIN characteristic
When temperature increases, many effects degrade the for each mode of the mutually injected laser output
performance of the system. The material gain decreases whose power is within 10 dB from the peak power. The
332 Journal of the Optical Society of Korea, Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2008

coded data. For the latter case, we used a bandpass

filter (BPF) at the receiver to remove the 1/f noise in
the transmitted signal. The low frequency cut-off of the
BPF was optimized at 0.8 MHz. For both modulation
formats, we maintained the signal data rate at 100
Mb/s, i.e., the transmitted bit rate of Manchester
coded data is equivalent to 200-Mb/s NRZ data. To
investigate the effects of Manchester coding, we compared
the BER performance of Manchester coded data with
that of NRZ data. As shown in Fig. 8, we examined
-10
the sensitivity at a BER of 10 (solid markers) and
the signal power of the wavelength locked F-P LD (hollow
markers) as a function of the offset that is the difference
between injection wavelength and peak wavelength of
FIG. 7. The measured RIN of a single mode of the a LD mode. The injection powers (total power) for
proposed BLS, a single mode of AR-coated F-P LD 1 and 100-Mb/s Manchester, 100-Mb/s NRZ and 200-Mb/s
the spectrum sliced ASE. NRZ were -13 dBm, -11 dBm, and -4 dBm, respectively.
For Manchester coded data, we measured the sensi-
tivity difference of 2 dB within a whole offset range of
0.6 nm that is the mode spacing of the F-P LD at an
ONT. We do not observe any sign of error-floor. The
minimum link budget that is the signal power minus
the receiver sensitivity was 17 dB. However, BER of
-10
10 was observed within a limited range of offset for
NRZ data even though we increased the injection power
by 3 dB. Thus, we only achieved the color-free operation
with Manchester coded data.
We decreased the cavity length to increase the trans-
mission data rate. The 622 Mb/s data was transmitted
with a low noise BLS with external cavity length of 12
cm. The quality of the BLS can be increased by intro-
ducing a radio frequency (RF) modulation signal into
an F-P LD. We increase the 3-dB linewidth, while
decrease the RIN by detuning the modulation frequency
from the fundamental beat frequency determined by the
passive cavity [33].
FIG. 8. The sensitivity at BER of 10-10(solid markers)
and the signal power of wavelength locked F-P LD (hollow
markers) as a function of offset. III. RECENT RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
filtered mode of the proposed BLS shows the considerably
suppressed RIN characteristic compared with a single In an effort to increase the capacity of the WDM-PON,
mode of the solitary AR-coated F-P LD as shown in we demonstrate a WDM-PON with 50 GHz channel
Fig. 7. The RIN was also compared with that of a spec- spacing [16]. The number of subscribers in a single
trum sliced ASE from EDFA based BLS. The spectrum PON can be further increased by using hybrid approaches,
sliced ASE has the spectral width of 0.2 nm. The i.e., a single wavelength can be shared by employing
achieved RIN by the mutual injection is considerably TDMA [17] or sub-carrier multiple access (SCMA) [18].
lower than the RIN of the spectrum sliced ASE. A hybrid WDM/TDM-PON that can serve 128 sub-
However, the RIN spectrum of the proposed BLS shows scribers at data rates of 1.25 Gb/s downstream and 622
1/f noise within a few MHz range as shown in Fig. 7. Mb/s upstream was demonstrated by cascading 1 16
Thus it is better to use Manchester coded data as a AWG and 1 8 splitters [15]. Each of 16 100-GHz-spaced
modulation format. WDM channels was shared by 8 subscribers in the time
The realized low noise BLS was replaced with the domain. However, this requires a media access controller
BLS based on EDFA. The BLS output was amplified and ranging, as in a conventional TDM-PON. Another
by an EDFA and transmitted through 20-km SMF. The approach was proposed to maintain dedicated point-to-
F-P LD was modulated with NRZ data or Manchester point connectivity. To do this, a wavelength was shared
WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs - Chang-Hee Lee et al. 333

AWG were used. In a different approach, a sub-carrier

multiplexed QAM data and base band digital signal
were combined to generate a downstream signal for the
subscriber. Then, a DFB LD was used for transmission
of the downstream signal. At the ONT, a baseband
receiver and an analog receiver were used and the
re-modulation scheme with a RSOA was used for the
upstream data transmission [22]. A low-noise BLS can
be used to generate a multiple wavelength broadcast
signal with an external modulator. The periodic property
of the AWG can then be used to transmit the broadcast
signal at an unused band [23].
FIG. 9. The proposed evolution architecture from the For IP video services that require large bandwidth
TDM-PON to the next-generation PON. and high QoS, service availability is one of the critical
concerns for the service provider. To increase service
by using SCMA in the RF domain [18]. The optical beat availability, protection from fiber faults and a fault loca-
interference noise among multiple subscribers in a lization method to reduce the recovery time are necessary.
WDM channel was mitigated via forward error correction The wavelength-locked F-P LD has been used as a
(FEC). When the channel spacing is 100 GHz, the total tunable optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR)
users in a single PON can be increased up to 192 with with a tunable filter instead of a tunable laser [24]. A
broadband BLSs. The color-free operation of ONTs was low power BLS of 3 dBm (total power) and a thermally
reported in both cases. tunable filter can be used to realize a low cost OTDR
In an effort to consolidate a metro network and an [25]. Another fault-localization scheme entailing monitor-
access network for simplification of the overall network ing of the status of the upstream signals was proposed
and reduction of CAPEX and OPEX, a long-reach [26]. When a failure is detected at an upstream channel,
DWDM-PON was demonstrated [19]. A channel spacing the corresponding downstream light source is switched
of 50 GHz was used to accommodate more users in a to transmit OTDR pulses instead of data.
single PON. The lasing wavelength of the F-P LD was A smooth evolution scheme from the installed TDM-
matched to the injection wavelength of the spectrum- PON to WDM-PON was also proposed and demonstrated
sliced BLS in order to have a higher link budget and [27] as shown in Fig. 9. The TDM-PON can be Broad-
to reduce the required injection power. While transmitting band PON (B-PON), E-PON, or Gigabit PON (G-PON).
100 Base-x Ethernet packets (data rate=125 Mb/s) as The basic assumption for these TDM-PONs is that the
the upstream and the downstream data, 70 km trans- upstream and the downstream wavelength bands follow
mission without an optical amplifier was demonstrated the standard wavelength bands defined by ITU-T. The
[19]. upstream and the downstream wavelength bands are
It may be noted that the bit rate transparency of 1,260 nm ~1,360 nm and 1,480 nm ~1,500 nm, respec-
the WDM-PON can be used to support lifeline commu- tively. The WDM-PON and existing TDM-PON share
nication for an emergency voice communication channel. feeder fiber by adding a three-port wavelength combiner/
The transceiver can be operated at a voice bit rate to splitter (WC) both at the OLT and the RN. The
reduce the power consumption. A conventional coin WDM-PON signal is combined with the TDM-PON
type battery can be used for the lifeline communication signal by the WC at the OLT. They are then separated
[20]. by a WC located at the RN before splitting. The
Since a WDM-PON uses a wavelength selective optical power splitter is connected after the WC. Since
device in a transmission path, e.g., AWG, it is not well the WDM signal does not go through the TDM-PON
suited for the delivery of broadcasting services. However, ONU/Ts, and vice versa, it is possible to design ONU/Ts
there have been some efforts to solve this problem. The that are independent of each other. Furthermore, to
delivery of broadcast video signals by using the cyclic deceases operation cost and provisioning time by a field
property of the AWG was demonstrated [21]. The down- reconfiguration of craft-man at the RN, we propose a
stream data were transmitted with multi-channel DFB new remotely reconfigurable RN [28] to provide an
LDs at the 1550 nm band, while the upstream data were efficient evolution path to NG services as shown in Fig.
transmitted with light emitting diodes (LEDs) at the 10. A new remotely reconfigurable RN for next-generation
1310 nm band. A DFB-LD operating at 1530 nm was services was proposed and demonstrated. Instantaneous
used for broadcasting the signals of more than 70 digital optical powering to the RN with a photovoltaic converter
video channels. To use a single DFB LD for the broad- and optical latch switches (OLSs) can reconfigure the
cast signal, an optical power splitter and an N x N cyclic optical path remotely and maintain the RN in a passive
state. We believe that this can be easily achieved by
334 Journal of the Optical Society of Korea, Vol. 12, No. 4, December 2008

[30] by utilizing multiple peaks (several longitudinal

modes) by the cyclic characteristics of the AWG.. This
method is a simple and also achieved color-free operation.
For a high capacity WDM-PON, KT formed a consor-
tium to develop a WDM-PON with capacity of more
than 20 Gb/s (1.25 Gb/s times 16). Three different
technologies, a wavelength locked F-P LD, re-modulation
of downstream data, and a coherent seeding method,
were investigated by this consortium. The first scheme
uses F-P LDs at both OLT and ONT with BLSs, as
described in Sections II. The last two schemes use RSOA
at the ONT. The remodulation scheme uses DFB LDs
at the OLT. The coherent seeding scheme uses RSOA
or DFB LD for downstream data. However, an extra
FIG. 10. Network architecture with a new remotely
array of DFB LDs is required for seed light [31].
reconfigurable RN for the evolution to next-generation
access networks.
Recently, we demonstrated WDM-PON of 40 Gb/s
over 15 km SMF [32]. In this system, the transmission
length was limited by the available injection power and
receiver sensitivity. We measured BER curves for all
32 channels. All BER curves show an error free trans-
mission as shown in Fig. 11. The sensitivities were ranged
-12
from -24.8 dBm to -26.0 dBm at the BER of 10 The
sensitivity difference between channels is only less than
1 dB. It implies that the signal quality of the transmitted
data is fairly uniform under uncontrolled injection ASE
power and injection position for each F-P LD. This feature
implies a feasibility color-free operation of ONTs. In
addition, the dispersion penalty over 30 km transmission
was 0.5 dB. Thus, we can extend the transmission
length with a high power BLS. The demonstrated WDM-
PON also shows a robust transmission performance on
FIG. 11. Measured BER result of 32 channel after 15 the optical back reflection [34]. Moreover, the transmis-
km transmission for ch1~ch32. sion length can be extended further by employing a
forward error correction (FEC). It may be noted that
FEC can be also used to reduce the injection ASE power.
using a high power laser and a sufficiently wide dynamic We believe that we can accommodate to expand up to
range is provided. Thus, the proposed architecture can 2.5 Gb/s at each subscriber. To have higher bit rate
provide an efficient and cost-effective evolution path per channel, we need higher injection power and/or less
for next-generation services, while maintaining the RN noise in the injected ASE source. A proper operation
in a passive state. of the F-P LD and/or RSOA having the high noise
As a low cost approach, we proposed WDM-PON using suppression is also helpful for higher speed operation.
double contact F-P LD without a seed light injection
[29]. The un-cooled double-contact F-P LD is used to
compensate the lasing envelope shift with temperature IV. SUMMARY
variation. Using this property, we can achieve a suffi-
cient power margin to transmit 155-Mb/s data over We reviewed wavelength locking technology which
20-km SMF to make up for the filtering loss by AWGs. has been used for commercially deployed WDM-PON.
To avoid the high MPN, we use a spectral window that A multimode F-P LD output can be converted to a
shows a low RIN. We used binary phase-shift keying quasi single mode with injection of a spectrum sliced
(BPSK) as a modulation format to utilize a low RIN ASE or low noise BLS. Then, we can use this light source
window. We demonstrated an error-free transmission for high speed WDM signal transmission. The advan-
with a 200-GHz channel spaced WDM-PON using the tage of this source is a color-free (colorless) operation.
proposed method. It is also possible to realize a 100- We can use a single type F-P LD for every ONT. This
GHz channel spaced WDM-PON using an optical am- feature solves many technical and practical issues in a
plifier or high power F-P LDs. As an another method, WDM-PON. In addition, technical advance in the ather-
we propose spectrum-sliced FabryProt Laser Diodes mal AWG eliminates thermal drift of transmission
WDM-PON Based on Wavelength Locked Fabry-Perot LDs - Chang-Hee Lee et al. 335

wavelength of an AWG located at the field. These Jung-Hyung Moon, Sil-Gu Mun, Ki-Tae Jeong, Jin-Hee
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