Nonlinear integrated optical resonators for optical fibre data recovery

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a reservoir computing system using GaAs microring resonators to perform real-time, all-optical compensation of nonlinear distortions in high-speed optical fiber communications, significantly improving signal quality.

Contribution

It introduces a novel nonlinear integrated optical resonator-based reservoir computer for real-time optical signal recovery in fiber communications.

Findings

Reduced error rate below FEC limit for 20 km fiber

Effective nonlinear distortion compensation at 12 dBm power

Demonstrated real-time all-optical data recovery

Abstract

We apply in simulation a reservoir computer based on evanescently coupled GaAs microrings for real-time compensation of a nonlinear distortion of a 50 Gbaud 16-QAM signal with the launch power up to 12 dBm in a standard single-mode optical fibre. We clearly evidence the crucial role of fast nonlinear response in enabling all-optical signal recovery in real time. With our system we are able to reduce the signal error rate below the forward error correction limit for a 20 km fibre and 12 dBm launch power.