Polar-Based OFDM and SC-FDE Links Toward Energy-Efficient Gbps Transmission Under IM-DD Optical System Constraints [Invited]

Recent studies have investigated the use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and single carrier frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE) for gigabyte per second (Gpbs) short-range optical wired and wireless access networks based on direct intensity-modulation with direct detection (IM-DD). OFDM systems have an inherent high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). SC-FDE systems have lower PAPR and thus outperform comparable OFDM systems in terms of bit-error performance under various practical considerations, mainly the limited dynamic range of operation at the transmitter. In RF-based OFDM and SC-FDE systems, the output signal is bipolar, complex, and cannot be transmitted in IM-DD systems. Therefore, several power efficient schemes, however spectrally inefficient, have been proposed to make positive OFDM and SC-FDE signals, e.g., asymmetrically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) and repetition and clipping optical SCFDE (RCO-SCFDE). To increase the data rate, novel OFDM and SC-FDE signal formats, called polar OFDM (P-OFDM) and polar SC-FDE (P-SC-FDE), based on a polar representation of complex symbols, are proposed. The proposed format offers twice as much spectral efficiency as state-of-the art unipolar OFDM and SC-FDE formats. Moreover, using a power allocation approach on the time-domain positive samples, the PAPR is further reduced, and the numerical evaluation of the bit-error performance under optical source power and dynamic range constraints demonstrates superior results toward Gpbs transmission.