Advances in Tb/s Superchannels

Optical superchannel transmission has recently attracted much research and development effort, aiming to increase the capacity and cost-effectiveness of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) systems. The use of superchannels avoids the electronic bottleneck via optical parallelism, and provides high per-channel data rate and better spectral utilization, especially in transparent mesh optical networks. This chapter reviews recent advances in the generation, detection, and transmission of optical superchannels with channel data rates on the order of Terabits/s. Multiplexing schemes such as optical orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing (O-OFDM) and Nyqusit WDM are described, in conjunction with modulation schemes such as OFDM and Nyquist-filtered single-carrier modulation. Superchannel transmission performance is discussed. Finally, networking implications brought by the use of superchannels, such as flexible-grid WDM, are also discussed.