Spatial division multiplexing (SDM) has been presented as a key solution to circumvent the nonlinear Shannon limit of standard single-core fibers. To implement SDM, multi-core fiber (MCF) technology becomes a top candidate that is leveraged by the very low inter-core crosstalk (XT) measurements obtained in real laboratory MCF prototypes with up to 22 cores. In this work, we concentrate on the design of MCF-enabled optical transport networks. To this goal, we present a methodology to estimate the worst-case transmission reach of the optical signals (at different bit rates and modulation formats) across MCFs given real laboratory XT measurements. Next, we present an optimal integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for the design of a flex-grid/SDM optical transport network that makes use of the transmission reach estimations. Additionally, an effective simulated annealing (SA)-based heuristic able to solve large problem instances with reasonable execution times is presented. Once the proposed heuristic is adequately tuned and validated, we use it to compare the resource utilization in MCF-enabled network scenarios against currently available multi-fiber link solutions. Numerical results reveal very close performances with up to 19 cores/fibers in national backbone network scenarios and up to 12 cores/fibers in long-haul continental ones.

Full-duplex bidirectional transmission at 10 Gb/s is demonstrated for extended wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM-PON) applications, achieving transmission distances up to 25 km of standard single mode fiber (SSMF) when using a low-bandwidth (~1.2 GHz) reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) for signal re-modulation at the optical network unit (ONU). The system is assisted by optimum offset filtering at the optical line terminal (OLT)-receiver and the performance is further improved with the use of decision-feedback equalization (DFE). Chromatic dispersion (CD) and Rayleigh Backscattering (RB) effects are considered and analyzed.

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We experimentally demonstrate 10-Gb/s operation of a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) for data transmission in passive optical networks, with optical power budgets of up to 28 dB. Besides a passive adaptation for the electrooptical response of the semiconductor device, neither active electronic equalization nor optical offset filtering was applied to enhance the modulation bandwidth of the RSOA. Error-free transmission without using error correcting codes can be obtained even for low RSOA input power values of -20 dBm.

Extended reach highly-scalable, fully passive WDM/TDM-PON allows reaching >1000 users along protected 100 km by colorless ONUs, centralized light-generation and control, single-fiber access and remote amplification. ONUs are based on 1.25/2.5/5Gbps-capable RSOA and downstream at 10 Gbps.

Symmetrical full-duplex transmission in a Passive Optical Network (PON) is demonstrated over a 100 km dual-fiber ring with 1:16 split trees. The customer premises equipment is based on a Reflective Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (RSOA), which reuses the wavelength of the intensity modulated downstream signal for upstream data transmission. A commercial RSOA was used together with optical offset filtering at the upstream receiver to operate at data rates of 5 and 10 Gb/s. Margins of >; 8 dB are left at a data rate of 5 Gb/s, proving that the utilized downstream suppression scheme and therefore the intensity modulation format for both, down- and upstream, is suitable for its application in long-reach hybrid access networks. The signal degradation along the PON and the transmitted pump that features means of remote amplification in its conjunction points between the metro ring and the local trees are discussed and further possibilities for an improvement of the transmission performance are proposed.