Comparison of Geometrically Shaped 32-QAM and Probabilistically Shaped 32-QAM in a Bandwidth-Limited IM-DD System

We use the generalized pair-wise optimization (PO) algorithm to optimize the geometrically shaped 32-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (GS-32-QAM) constellation and adopt the probabilistic fold shaping (PFS) scheme to generate the probabilistically shaped 32-QAM (PS-32-QAM) format. We present a detailed comparison among the application of GS-32-QAM, PS-32-QAM and uniform 32-QAM in an intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) system with a bandwidth-limited digital-to-analog converter (DAC). We experimentally demonstrate the 32-QAM discrete Fourier transform-spread (DFT-S) discrete multi-tone (DMT) signal transmission over 1-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF) in an IM/DD system with a net data rate of 108.29-Gb/s/λ, and achieve 0.6 dB and 0.9 dB receiver sensitivity gain using PS and GS constellations, respectively. In the high signal to noise ratio (SNR) case with a net bit rate of 69.61-Gb/s/λ, the PS-32-QAM DMT signal can provide the receiver sensitivity gain of 0.5 dB while the receiver sensitivity gain of the GS-32-QAM DMT signal is 0.4 dB, compared to the uniform 32-QAM DMT signal. Although PS-32-QAM achieves better receiver sensitivity gain than GS-32-QAM in the high SNR case, the proposed GS-32-QAM format outperforms PS-32-QAM in the low SNR case.