Opt Quant Electron (2013) 45:459–466

DOI 10.1007/s11082-013-9658-4

The WDM–ROF–PON based on linearly-polarization

dual-wavelength fiber laser and CSRZ–DPSK modulation

Wei Ji · Qingjie Huang · Dejun Feng · Jun Chang

Received: 17 September 2012 / Accepted: 21 January 2013 / Published online: 1 February 2013
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract In this paper, we design a linearly-polarized dual-wavelength fiber laser used in

WDM–ROF–PON, which can achieve wire-line and wireless access synchronously. With
polarization multiplexing, the dual-wavelength fiber laser is the union light source of WDM–
PON. With the CSRZ–DPSK modulation, the wireless access system of ONU can save RF
source and the frequency of radio carrier can be controlled by OLT. The networking has the
credible transmission property, including fiber transmission and wireless access.

Keywords Fiber laser · Linearly polarization · RoF · WDM–PON · CSRZ–DPSK

1 Introduction

With respect to wire-line access networks, the wavelength division multiplexed–passive opti-
cal network (WDM–PON) is investigated for its large data bandwidth, enhanced security,
and scalability to support several local subscribers. On the other hand, technologies such
as Wi-Fi/ WiMAX/3G are becoming popular because they are more scalable and flexible.
A real convergence of optical and wireless access may happen in Radio on Fiber (RoF)
systems. A new idea about PON/RoF Convergence is to convey the RF sub-carriers on the
fiber plant of PON so that the baseband data stream and the data modulated RF signal can be
simultaneously delivered to wire-line and wireless users (Lin 2008; Shih et al. 2009).
Erbium-doped fiber laser, especially linearly-polarized one has attracted considerable
attention because of their multi-wavelength output, high output power, narrow line-width,
and fiber compatibility. They are used in a wide variety of applications, such as wavelength-
division-multiplexing (WDM) communications systems, sensing, or microwave photonic
generation (Onoda et al. 2008). There are several techniques available to yield a linearly-
polarized narrow line-width laser emission. Combination of polarization maintaining (PM)

W. Ji (B)· Q. Huang · D. Feng · J. Chang

The School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University,
Jinan 250100, Shandong, China
e-mail: jiwww2000@126.com; jiwww@sdu.edu.cn

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fiber and a polarizer is the most widely-used technique for selecting a single polarization
state (Jelger et al. 2009).
Optical differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) has become the modulation of choice to
achieve high capacity without significantly increasing the system complexity as well as band-
width requirements. DPSK modulation is used to modulate non-return-to-zero (NRZ), return-
to-zero (RZ), and carrier-suppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) modulation patterns. CSRZ–
DPSK modulation format has the smallest eye-opening penalty (EOP) with a wider range of
fiber power (Masahiro et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2007).
In this paper, we report an improved all-fiber linearly-polarized dual-wavelength fiber
laser by using a PM chirped FBG and a PM FBG as the resonant cavity mirrors, which used
in WDM–ROF–PON. Using CSRZ–DPSK modulation, the system can achieve polarization
multiplexing and wire-line, wireless access synchronously. The rest of the paper is organized
as follows: Sects. 2 and 3 describe the proposed fiber laser and network architecture outlining
its novelty and the detailed description of the experimental setup for them. This is followed
by the performance evaluation and analysis of the system. Finally, provides the concluding
remarks.

2 The design of fiber laser

The setup of linearly-polarization dual-wavelength fiber laser and the output of the laser
are depicted in Fig. 1a, b. The 980 nm 300 mW laser was coupled into the gain fiber
through a tapered fused bundle (TFB) combiner. The gain fiber is a 14.6m-long polarization-
maintaining Er-doped fiber. At both ends two PM-FBGs were spliced to make up the resonant
cavity and the spectra gratings are shown in Fig. 2a, b. The high reflective PM-FBG1 has a
reflectivity of 98.5 %, 1,556.5 nm central wavelength and with a FWHM of 15 nm, which is
a chirped FBG. A low reflective PM-FBG2 used as the output coupler of the laser cavity has
a 10.2 % reflectivity, two central wavelengths 1,550.8, 1,551.11 and 0.11 nm FWHM. The
spectrum of the PM-FBG2 shows two peaks, which correspond to the slow axis and the fast
axis of the PM fiber. Polarization controller (PC) is used to control the polarization of beam
in the fiber.
Polarization-maintaining Er-doped fiber is high bi-refringent. There are two ray axes,
corresponding to different refractive index. The efficiency refractive index of slow axis and
fast axis are neffx , neffy and the polarizations of two axes are orthogonal (Feng et al. 2009).
The refractive wavelengths correspond to:

 
λx = 2neffx  λy = 2neffy  λB = 2 neffx − neffy (1)

where λB is the differential of two refractive wavelengths,  is the period of FBG. The two
transmission dips correspond to λy = 1,550.8 nm and λx = 1,551.11 nm for the fast axis and
the slow axis, respectively, which shows in Fig. 1b and the output power is about 10 mW.
Since the whole laser cavity is all PM fiber, the polarization states of the light within the
cavity can be well maintained. Feedback from the PM-FBG1 and PM-FBG2 in the cavity
results in two linearly orthogonally polarized modes, which are separated both in wavelength
and polarization. Lasers lasing on different linear-polarized modes greatly enhance the polar-
ization hole burning (PHB) in the cavity, which will restrain the modes competition (Fan et
al. 2003). Due to the PHB, a steady dual-wavelength laser can be realized.

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Fig. 1 a The setup of linearly-polarization fiber laser. b The output of the fiber laser

3 The structure of WDM–RoF–PON

The experiment setup of WDM–RoF–PON downstream system is shown in Fig. 3. The light
source of OLT (Optical Line Terminal) is linearly-polarized dual-wavelength fiber laser. The
DPSK coded 10 Gbit/s Ethernet signals modulate both of the linearly polarized optical signals
through LiNbO3 modulator. Using 5GHz radio signal and LiNbO3 modulator achieve CSRZ
modulation.
The optical signal of CSRZ–DPSK modulated can be described as:

E out (t) = AE in (t) {[cos(ωc − ωs )t + φ(t)] + [cos(ωc + ωs )t + φ(t)]} (2)

where ωc and E in (t) are frequency and amplitude of input optical signal, which corresponds
to 1,550.8 and 1,551.11 nm. ωs is the frequency of radio signal which equals to 5 GHz,
φ(t) = [0 or π] is the instant phase of DPSK signal. The output signal of point (c) in Fig. 3
becomes a CSRZ–DPSK signal, which has a periodic amplitude with a phase shift varied
according to the sign of the signal data(t), the rate of which is 10Gbit/s.
The coupled two linearly polarized CSRZ–DPSK signals transmit through transmission
fiber and then de-multiplexed by PBS (Polarization Beam Splitter). ONU (Optical Network-
ing Unit) receives the downstream optical signal, and then splits two parts by optical power
splitter. One part achieve wire access by 1-bit delay MZI (Mach-Zehnder interferometer), O/E
(Optical/ Electrical) converting, 3R (Re-amplify, Re-time, Re-shape) and Ethernet protocol
processing.
The double side-bands of CSRZ–DPSK signal have the same information. As directed
O/E converting, the phase information of double side-bands can be completely erased, which

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Fig. 2 a The reflection of PM-FBG1. b The transmission of PM-FBG2

Fig. 3 The structure of WDM–RoF–PON

can be described as:

Iout (t) = A2 |E in (t)|2 · cos(2ωs t) (3)

The other part received optical signal is directly finished O/E converting and get the radio
carrier signal after electrical filtering. The signal from Ethernet protocol processing, acting
as data resource modulates the radio carrier by OOK (On-Off Key) modulation and finishes
wireless access.

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Fig. 4 a One of the outputs of PBS, b the DPSK modulated optical signal, c the CSRZ–DPSK modulated
optical signal

4 The results and analysis

Figure 4a gives the one of the outputs of dual multi-wavelength fiber laser, corresponding
to the point (a) in Fig. 3. The wavelength is 1,550.8 nm, the polarization of which parallels
to the fast axis of polarization maintaining fiber. Figure 4b is the spectrum of optical signal
modulated by 10Gbit/s DPSK electrical signal and the result of CSRZ modulation is shown
in Fig. 4c, which correspond to point (b) and (c) in Fig. 3.
Figure 5a, b give the frequency and time domain of the directly O/E converted downstream
CSRZ–DPSK optical signal, which is filtered by electrical filter. As ωs = 5 GHz, so the
frequency of the produced radio signal is 10GHz. Figure 5a, b also give that the produced
RF signal has narrow frequency spectrum and steady property in time domain. It is the basis
of successful wireless access. Figure 5c gives the modulated wireless carrier signal which is
produced by CSRZ–DPSK optical signal O/E directly converting.
Figure 6a gives the eye diagram of received downstream optical signal in ONU, which
corresponds to point (d) of Fig. 3. After 20Km transmission, the CSRZ–DPSK downstream
optical signal has excellent degree of eye diagram opening, which is the basis of reliably

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Fig. 5 a The frequency and b time domain of wireless carrier signal, c the modulated wireless signal

Fig. 6 a The received downstream optical signal, b the eye-graph of received wireless signal

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Fig. 7 The property of WDM–RoF–PON with different access range

Fig. 8 The implement of downstream video service

wire-line access. Figure 6b shows the received property of wireless terminal, corresponding
to the point (g) in Fig. 3. The received wireless signal also has excellent degree of eye diagram
opening.
Using Q parameter describes the property of the networking, which is calculated from the
BER (Bit Error Rate) value:
√
Q = 20 log[ 2er f c−1 (2B E R)] (4)

where erfc−1 is the inverse complementary error function (Malouin et al. 2007).
The property of WDM–RoF–PON with different access range is shown in Fig. 7. By the
figure, we can see that at the condition of 50 Km transmission fiber, to the orthogonal, 1,550.8
and 1,551.11 nm wavelengths linearly-polarized signals, the values of Q are all above of 10.
The networking has excellent covering property.
Figure 8 gives the results of the WDM–RoF–PON system transmission high definition
video service. The video service is in 10 Gbit/s Ethernet protocol, then through the designed

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WDM–RoF–PON based on dual-wavelength fiber laser and CSRZ–DPSK, the handbook

computer receives the wireless accessed video service and the TV plays the wire-line accessed
service which received by STB (set top box). Both wire-line access and wireless access have
excellent received results.

5 Conclusions

We have designed the linearly-polarization dual-wavelength fiber laser and shown the intro-
duction of a WDM–RoF–PON based on the fiber laser and CSRZ–DPSK modulation without
making any major changes in its infrastructure. Due to the polarization hole burning, the fiber
laser has steady dual wavelength output. The linearly-polarization dual-wavelength fiber laser
can be the union light source of WDM–PON which can achieve polarization multiplex and
improve the bandwidth of communication. The networking also implements simultaneous
wire-line and wireless access without any RF source in ONU. Through the analysis results,
the networking has the credible transmission property, including wireless access and fiber
transmission.

Acknowledgments This study is supported by National natural science foundation (61144003, 61201210),
Shandong natural science foundation (ZR2009GQ014), Shandong postdoctoral science foundation
(201102012), Chinese postdoctoral science foundation (20110491568), the Independent Innovation Fund
of Shandong University (2012ZD037); Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical
Communications (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications), Ministry of Education.

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