Low‐Latency WDM Intensity‐Modulation and Direct‐Detection Transmission Over >100 km Distances in a Hollow Core Fiber
Yang Hong, Kyle R. H. Bottrill, Thomas D. Bradley, Hesham Sakr, Gregory T. Jasion, Kerrianne Harrington, Francesco Poletti, Periklis Petropoulos, David J. Richardson
Abstract
Abstract The pervasive digital economy, fueled by developments in datacenter networking and cloud/edge computing, relies ever increasingly on the implementation of short‐ to metro‐range high‐capacity, low‐latency optical communication links. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the low spectrally flat chromatic dispersion and ultralow nonlinearity possible in hollow‐core fibers (HCFs) compared to conventional solid‐core fibers offer significant potential for the transmission of intensity‐modulation and direct‐detection (IM‐DD) signals over 100‐km‐scale distances. Specifically, the longest HCF‐only IM‐DD wavelength‐division multiplexed (WDM) C‐band transmission experiments (>100km) without chromatic dispersion compensation to date are reported, achieving reach improvements of approximately 5 times and 2 times compared to using standard single‐mode fiber and non‐zero dispersion‐shifted fiber, respectively, in the same experimental recirculating loop set‐up. For >100‐km transmission, a significant >150‐µs latency reduction can be obtained using HCF. These results, in combination with recent progress in loss reduction in HCFs, indicate that such fibers present a promising route to the realization of simple, cost‐effective, high‐capacity, ultra‐low‐latency IM‐DD WDM transmission links with the potential to revolutionize optical networks in the years to come.