A novel maximum-ratio combined receiver (MRC-RX) is proposed and demonstrated through a proof-of-concept experiment, conducted to mitigate the system performance degradation caused by the low linearity of the silicon modulator when deployed in passive optical network (PON)-based access. By employing the proposed MRC-RX, an optimized receiver sensitivity is achieved, which enables the mitigation of the performance degradation induced by the silicon modulator, and a more reliable transmission in both cases of low and high received power. In the proof-of-concept experiment, at a bit error rate of 1.0 × 10 -4 , the receiver sensitivity of the MRC-RX was improved by 3.5 dB and 6.7 dB compared with the lite coherent receiver (lite CO-RX) and direct detection receiver (DD-RX), respectively. Compared with a system employing a commercial lithium niobate (LiNbO3) modulator, a maximum improvement of ~5.6 dB in the receiver sensitivity was obtained for the MRC-RX in the silicon modulator system. Thus, the system performance degradation caused by the low linearity of the silicon modulator can be effectively reduced by employing the MRC-RX. The proposed method makes sense to the building of next generation high reliable photonics integrated access by employing silicon modulators.

中文翻译：

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基于最大比组合接收机硅调制器的下一代光接入网高可靠传输系统


通过概念验证实验提出并演示了一种新型最大比率组合接收器 (MRC-RX)，该实验旨在减轻部署在无源光网络 (PON) 中时因硅调制器的低线性度而导致的系统性能下降基于访问。通过采用所提出的 MRC-RX，可以实现优化的接收器灵敏度，从而减轻硅调制器引起的性能下降，并在低接收功率和高接收功率的情况下实现更可靠的传输。在概念验证实验中，在误码率为1.0 × 10 -4 时，MRC-RX的接收灵敏度较精简型相干接收机（lite CO-RX）分别提高了3.5 dB和6.7 dB，直接检测接收器（DD-RX）。与采用商用铌酸锂 (LiNbO3) 调制器的系统相比，硅调制器系统中的 MRC-RX 的接收器灵敏度最大提高了约 5.6 dB。因此，采用MRC-RX可以有效减少由于硅调制器的低线性度而导致的系统性能下降。所提出的方法对于利用硅调制器构建下一代高可靠光子集成接入具有重要意义。