Multi-core optical fibers, the "superhighway" of the optical communication world, are ushering us into a new era of information transmission. Recent research by our faculty and students has revealed that a 16D Voronoi Constellation (MLC-16D VC) can enable signals to travel faster and farther on this "highway". In a 50-kilometer experiment with four-core optical fibers, this technology not only overcomes inter-core signal-to-noise ratio disparities but also delivers a 6dB gain in optical power sensitivity, significantly boosting transmission efficiency. Come and witness the "speed and passion" of optical fiber communication.

Paper Title: Experimental Demonstration of 16D Voronoi Constellation with Two-Level Coding over 50km four-Core Fiber

Authors: Can Zhao, Bin Chen, Jiaqi Cai, Zhiwei Liang, Yi Lei, et al.

Paper Link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.06662

Figure 1: Comparative Diagram of Traditional 2D Modulation and Multi-Dimensional Modulation in a Four-Core Optical Fiber Transmission System

Figure 2: Experimental setup. Inset (a) shows the encoder of VC with MLC scheme. Inset (b) shows the decoder of VC with MLC scheme. Inset (c) shows the 2D projection of the constellations after 50 km transmission at the optimal launch power

Figure 3: Effective SNR as a function of the launch power over 50 km transmission in WC-MCF

Figure 4: Post-LDPC BER as a function of launch powers via 4-core transmission for 16QAM and 16D-VC with the net information rate around 530 Gbps

A 16-dimensional Voronoi constellation concatenated with multilevel coding is experimentally demonstrated over a 50 km four-core fiber transmission system. The proposed scheme reduces the required launch power by 6 dB and provides a 17 dB larger operating range than 16QAM with BICM at the outer HD-FEC BER threshold.

In September 2024, at the International Optical Communication Summit—European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC)—held in Germany, a paper authored by Zhao Can, a 2022 master’s student from our school, was selected as a Top-Scored Paper. Zhao was also invited to publish an invited paper in the IEEE/Optica Journal of Lightwave Technology (JLT). This work was jointly conducted by Hefei University of Technology, Soochow University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with Associate Professor Chen Bin from our school serving as the corresponding author. It also marks our school’s first Top-Scored Paper at ECOC.

ECOC is one of the most authoritative and prestigious conferences in the global optical fiber communication industry. Each year, it selects the highest-quality papers as Top-Scored Papers. For the 2024 ECOC, only around 10 out of over 800 submitted papers were chosen for this honor.