Suppression of Rayleigh backscattering noise using cascaded-SOA and microwave photonic filter for 10 Gb/s loop-back WDM-PON

In this paper, we present a novel Rayleigh backscattering (RB) noise mitigation scheme based on central carrier suppression for 10 Gb/s loop-back wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON). Microwave modulated multi-subcarrier optical signal is used as downstream seeding light, while cascaded semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) are used in the optical network unit (ONU) for suppressing the central carrier of the multi-subcarrier upstream signal. With central carrier suppression, interference generated by carrier RB noise at low frequency region is eliminated successfully. Transmission performance over 45 km single mode fiber (SMF) is studied experimentally, and the optical-signal-to-Rayleigh-noise-ratio (OSRNR) can be reduced to 15 dB with central carrier suppression ratio (CCSR) of 21 dB. Receiver sensitivity is further improved by 6 dB with the use of microwave photonic filter (MPF) for suppressing residual upstream microwave signal and residual carrier RB at high frequency region.