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Next Generation Optical Communication Systems in the O-band:
A Key Enabler for Capacity Enhancement in Existing Fibre Links (NOOK)

NOOK Project Logo

H.F.R.I. Research Projects to Support Faculty Members & Researchers (2nd Call)

Project Duration: 1/1/2022 – 31/12/2024 (36 months)

Principal Investigator: Prof. Adonis Bogris

Scientific Area: Engineering Sciences & Technology

Scientific Field / Subfield: Electrical, electronic & communication engineering / Communication engineering and systems

Host Institution: University of West Attica (UniWA)

Collaborating Organizations: University of Southampton (UoS), University of the Aegean (UoA)

Optical fibre is the most broadband transmission medium comprising the highway that massively transfers data corresponding to communication taking place among billions of terminal devices per second. State of the art optical communication systems operate in the C-band (1530–1565 nm) and less often in the L-band (1565–1625 nm). These two bands offer almost 100 nm of useful optical bandwidth and have been predominantly selected since the early 80s as they provide propagation at the lowest loss. This fact was a strong driver for the fabrication of devices such as emitters, receivers, and amplifiers that operate in this wavelength window. Nowadays, many experts in the field of optical communications and networking predict that the continuous need for more demanding paradigms such as 5G, Internet of Things, and cloud services will fully exhaust the capacity offered by the C-band and L-band, thus posing an indisputable need for enhancement of long-haul communication systems capacity. Different techniques have been proposed to circumvent this threat, either pushing towards the ideal utilisation of fibre capacity in the non-linear regime or by introducing spatial division multiplexing in the form of multi-fibre, multi-core, and multi-mode transmission.

Lately, the extension of fibre bandwidth as a method to resolve “capacity crunch” has started gaining ground. For this reason, many groups worldwide focus their research on designing and fabricating optical devices that may cover other useful wavelengths for fibre transmission ranging from 1250 nm to 1700 nm. The potential of already installed fibres is to accommodate 300 nm of wavelength multiplexed signals, whilst nowadays the majority of systems only utilise the C-band (~35 nm). The most important argument of the bandwidth extension roadmap is that next-generation optical communication systems will rely on already deployed infrastructures, thus avoiding the requirement for a costly infrastructure upgrade proposed by experts exploring the potential of few-mode fibres (FMFs) and multi-core fibres (MCFs).

NOOK focuses its research on exploring the O-band (1260–1360 nm), which offers an extra 100 nm of optical bandwidth and holds clear potential for the generation of high-quality devices, including optical amplifiers utilizing properly designed Bi-doped fibres. The main particular property of O-band transmission is near-zero dispersion and its significant variation along the 100 nm range, which lays the ground for strong and non-uniform nonlinear effects that must be efficiently mitigated. Besides the in-depth analysis of conventional communications, NOOK also addresses the advent of quantum communications, investigating the potential of the O-band to simultaneously support classical and quantum channels, as well as the impact of O-band transmission on classical and quantum channels residing in the C- and L-bands.

Project Publications

  1. A. Bogris, K. Sozos, S. Deligiannidis, G. Sarantoglou, and C. Mesaritakis. (2022). Machine Learning and Neuromorphic Computing Approaches for the mitigation of transmission impairments in high baud rate transmission systems. 2022 European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC), Basel, Switzerland, pp. 1-4. [Invited talk]
  2. K. Sozos, A. Bogris, P. Bienstman, G. Sarantoglou, S. Deligiannidis, and C. Mesaritakis. (2022). High-speed photonic neuromorphic computing using recurrent optical spectrum slicing neural networks. Communications Engineering 1, 24. doi:10.1038/s44172-022-00024-5
  3. K. Sozos, S. Deligiannidis, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2023). Self-Coherent Receiver Based on a Recurrent Optical Spectrum Slicing Neuromorphic Accelerator. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 9, pp. 2666-2674. doi:10.1364/JLT.41.002666
  4. K. Sozos, S. Deligiannidis, G. Sarantoglou, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2023). Recurrent Neural Networks and Recurrent Optical Spectrum Slicers as Equalizers in High Symbol Rate Optical Transmission Systems. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 41, no. 15, pp. 5037-5050. [Invited paper] doi:10.1109/JLT.2023.3282999
  5. A. Bogris, K. Sozos, G. Sarantoglou, S. Deligiannidis, and C. Mesaritakis. (2023). Neuromorphic computing by means of recurrent spectrum slicing for next generation high baud rate transmission systems. 2023 IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topicals Meeting Series (SUM), Sicily, Italy, pp. 1-2. [Invited talk] doi:10.1109/SUM57928.2023.10224454
  6. S. Deligiannidis, N. Argyris, S. Dris, D. Kalavrouziotis, P. Bakopoulos, A. Bogris, and C. Mesaritakis. (2023). Deep-Learning-Based VCSEL Transmitter Emulator. 2023 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC), Munich, Germany. doi:10.1109/CLEO/Europe-EQEC57999.2023.10232151
  7. K. Sozos, S. Deligiannidis, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2023). Unconventional Computing based on Four Wave Mixing in Highly Nonlinear Media. 2023 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC), Munich, Germany. doi:10.1109/CLEO/Europe-EQEC57999.2023.10231929
  8. K. Sozos, S. Deligiannidis, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2024). Unconventional Computing Based on Four Wave Mixing in Highly Nonlinear Waveguides. IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 1-6. doi:10.1109/JQE.2024.3405826
  9. K. Sozos, F. Da Ros, M. Yankov, S. Deligiannidis, G. Sarantoglou, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2024). Recurrent Optical Spectrum Slicing Receiver for Power Fading Mitigation in Highly Dispersive Links using Programmable Photonics. 2024 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC), Rome, Italy, pp. 1-2. doi:10.1109/IPC60965.2024.10799740
  10. Y. Hong, S. Deligiannidis, N. Taengnoi, K. R. H. Bottrill, N. K. Thipparapu, Y. Wang, J. K. Sahu, D. J. Richardson, C. Mesaritakis, A. Bogris, and P. Petropoulos. (2022). ML-Assisted Equalization for 50-Gb/s/λ O-Band CWDM Transmission Over 100-km SMF. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 1-10. doi:10.1109/JSTQE.2022.3155990
  11. S. Deligiannidis, K. R. H. Bottrill, K. Sozos, C. Mesaritakis, P. Petropoulos, and A. Bogris. (2024). Multichannel Nonlinear Equalization in Coherent WDM Systems Based on Bi-Directional Recurrent Neural Networks. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 541-549. doi:10.1109/JLT.2023.3318559
  12. K. Sozos, F. Da Ros, M. P. Yankov, G. Sarantoglou, S. Deligiannidis, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2024). Experimental Investigation of a Recurrent Optical Spectrum Slicing Receiver for Intensity Modulation/Direct Detection Systems Using Programmable Photonics. Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. 42, no. 22, pp. 7807-7815. [Invited paper] doi:10.1109/JLT.2024.3430489
  13. K. Sozos, F. Da Ros, M. P. Yankov, S. Deligiannidis, G. Sarantoglou, C. Mesaritakis, and A. Bogris. (2024). Experimental Investigation of a M-QAM Receiver Based on Recurrent Optical Spectrum Slicing and Direct Detection. ECOC 2024; 50th European Conference on Optical Communication, pp. 812-815.

These works were supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I.) through the 2nd Call for H.F.R.I. Research Projects to support Faculty Members and Researchers under Project 2901.

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