Disclosed herein is a method of encoding and/or decoding data for optical data transmission along a transmission link, as well as corresponding transmitters and receivers. The data is encoded based on an adaptive constellation diagram in a 2-D plane, said constellation diagram including a first and a second pair of symbols, wherein the symbols of the first pair of symbols are located at opposite sides of the origin of the 2-D plane at a first distance di from each other, and wherein the symbols of the second pair of symbols are located at opposite sides of the origin of the 2-D plane at a second distance d2 from each other. The method comprises a step of adapting the constellation diagram by varying the ratio of the first and second distances d.sub.1, d.sub.2 such as to minimize or nearly minimize a bit error rate in the transmitted data.

A skew compensation system for a coherent optical communication network includes a transmitter modulator having a first driver input for receiving a first signal from a first channel, a second driver input for receiving a second signal from a second channel, a source input for receiving a continuous wave source signal, and a modulation output in communication with an optical transport medium of the network. The system further includes a tunable delay line disposed between the second channel and the second driver input for inserting a pre-determined training sequence onto the second signal prior to the second driver input, and a processor for determining a skew amount between the second signal at the second driver input and the first signal at the first driver input, calculating a pre-compensation value corresponding to the skew amount, and reducing the skew amount at the modulation output according to the pre-compensation value.

Embodiments herein disclose receiver of coherent optical communication link and method of compensating carrier phase offset in receiver. 90° optical hybrid is configured to receive input of reference optical carrier (LO) signal and modulated optical signal (S) and carrier phase offset detection block is configured to generate output signal representing average of the phase offset at the input of the carrier phase offset detection block. Electronic control unit configured to receive output signals from the carrier phase offset detection block for generating control signals and tunable phase delay block configured to receive the control signals from the electronic control unit. 90° optical hybrid, carrier phase offset detection block, electronic control unit and the tunable phase delay block are configured in feedback loop, such that outputs of the carrier phase offset detection block are used for tuning the phase delay of the tunable phase delay block to achieve carrier phase synchronization.

Various embodiments of a monolithic transceiver are described, which may be fabricated on a semiconductor substrate. The monolithic transceiver includes a coherent receiver module (CRM), a coherent transmitter module (CTM), and a local oscillation splitter to feed a local oscillation to the CRM and the CTM with a tunable power ratio. The monolithic transceiver provides tunable responsivity by employing avalanche photodiodes (APDs) for opto-electrical conversion. The monolithic transceiver also employs a polarization beam rotator-splitter (PBRS) and a polarization beam rotator-combiner (PBRC) for supporting modulation schemes including polarization multiplexed quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-QAM) and polarization multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying (PM-QPSK).

A digital communication method over an optical channel. Bob modulates a coherent optical signal with a random envelope phase φr, known to him and not to Alice, and transmits the modulated coherent optical signal (envelope) over the optical channel to Alice. Alice further modulates the envelope with a key phase φk, based on a secret key and a selected modulation scheme, to create a cipher envelope, and sends the cipher envelope towards Bob along the optical channel. Bob then demodulates a received version of the cipher envelope by removing the random envelope phase φr (known to Bob) and then measures the phase of the resulting demodulated coherent optical signal with the coherent detector to extract, to within a certain margin of error, the key phase φk, from which Alice's secret key can be decoded. Bob then uses the secret key for encrypting messages sent to Alice over any digital network.

An optical circuit device includes a first to fourth optical couplers, wherein the first optical coupler splits a first input light into a first output beam and a second output beam with a 90-degree phase: difference therebetween, and the second optical coupler splits a second input light into a third output beam and a fourth output beam with a 180-degree phase difference therebetween. The third optical coupler combines one of the first and second output beams and one of the third and fourth output beams, and outputs a first optical signal and a second optical signal having a 180-degree phase shift from each other. The fourth optical coupler combines the other of the first and second output beams and the other of the third and fourth output beams, and outputs a third optical signal and a fourth optical signal having a 180-degree phase shift from each other.

In a coherent optical receiver device, the dynamic range considerably decreases in the case of selectively receiving the optical multiplexed signals by means of the wavelength of the local oscillator light, therefore, a coherent optical receiver device according to an exemplary aspect of the invention includes a coherent optical receiver receiving optical multiplexed signals in a lump in which signal light is multiplexed; a variable optical attenuator; a local oscillator connected to the coherent optical receiver; and a first controller controlling the variable optical attenuator by means of a first control signal based on an output signal of the coherent optical receiver; wherein the coherent optical receiver includes a 90-degree hybrid circuit, a photoelectric converter, and an impedance conversion amplifier, and selectively detects the signal light interfering with local oscillation light output by the local oscillator out of the optical multiplexed signals; and the variable optical attenuator is disposed in the optical path of the optical multiplexed signals in a stage preceding the photoelectric converter, inputs the optical multiplexed signals, and outputs them to the coherent optical receiver controlling the intensity of the optical multiplexed signals based on the first control signal.

A frame synchronization apparatus (10) according to this invention includes a multiplication unit (11) configured to multiply a received signal by an inverse complex number of a predetermined synchronization pattern with respect to a predetermined signal point on a complex space diagram for each of a plurality of symbols of the received signal, an addition average unit (12) configured to perform addition averaging of outputs from the multiplication unit for the plurality of symbols of the received signal, and a synchronization determination unit (13) configured to perform coincidence determination of whether an output from the addition average unit (12) falls within a predetermined coincidence determination range of the predetermined signal point, and determine a synchronization state of the frame synchronization based on a result of the coincidence determination. According to this invention, it is possible to provide a frame synchronization apparatus that correctly determines a synchronization state even if an error rate of received symbols is high.

Apparatus and method for digital signal constellation transformation are provided herein. In certain configurations, an integrated circuit includes an analog front-end that converts an analog signal vector representing an optical signal into a digital signal vector, and a digital signal processing circuit that processes the digital signal vector to recover data from the optical signal. The digital signal processing circuit generates signal data representing a signal constellation of the digital signal vector. The digital signal processing circuit includes an adaptive gain equalizer that compensates the signal data for distortion of the signal constellation arising from biasing errors of optical modulators used to transmit the optical signal.

An apparatus includes a first modulator configured to modulate a radio frequency (RF) input signal onto a first optical signal and a second modulator configured to modulate a local oscillator (LO) signal onto a second optical signal. The apparatus also includes a photonic integrated circuit having an optical demodulator configured to generate, using the modulated optical signals, I and Q signals representing a demodulated version of the RF input signal. The optical demodulator may include an optical filter bank having multiple optical filters, where different optical filters are configured to pass different frequencies or frequency ranges. The optical filters may include at least one narrowband optical filter and/or one or more tunable optical filters.

The narrowband optical filter(s) may be configured to isolate global navigation satellite system-related signals. The tunable optical filter(s) may be configured to isolate signals over a frequency range of about 900 MHz to about 12 GHz.