A new single-fiber 10-Gb/s optical loopback method using phase modulation for WDM optical access networks

This paper proposes a new single-fiber 10-Gb/s optical loopback method for wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical access networks. The proposed method improves the tolerance of backreflection that causes interferometric crosstalk with the loopback method on a single fiber. Furthermore, bit synchronization is used to avoid the problem of wavelength dispersion caused in optical access networks. The authors simulated the available distance, received eye patterns at 10 Gb/s, and confirmed the excellent eye opening. 10-Gb/s back-to-back experiments show that the proposed method provides a 17-dB improvement in backreflection tolerance compared with the direct method. The paper reports the first successful results for 10- and 20-km transmission experiments using a standard single-mode optical fiber. The measured eye patterns agreed well with the simulation results. The paper also shows measured bit-error rates (BERs) equivalent to those of a back-to-back configuration.