A transmission method includes: in a first period, causing a light source to emit light having a first luminance; and in a second period, causing the light source to transmit an optical signal by causing the light source to alternately emit light having a second luminance and light having a third luminance lower than the second luminance.

Techniques are described for implementing an out-of-band communication channel used to exchange control channel information in sub-carrier-based optical communication systems. In an example implementation, an optical communication system includes a primary transceiver, a component, and secondary transceivers. The primary transceiver is operable to supply first optical subcarriers to an optical communication path, the first optical subcarriers being amplitude modulated at a first frequency to carry first control information and amplitude modulated at a second frequency to carry second control information. The component is operable to be coupled to the optical communication path and includes circuitry operable to detect the first control information. The secondary transceivers are coupled to a terminal end of the optical communication path. At least one of the secondary transceivers is operable to detect the second control information and block the first control information.

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.

An optical transmitter can generate probabilistically shaped quadrature amplitude modulation (PS-QAM) signaling for transmission over a fiber to a destination without optical amplification. The single fiber can transmit the PS-QAM signaling using dense wavelength division multiplexing having a relatively large number of channels that are closely spaced. A coherent receiver can receive the PS-QAM signaling for decoding without implementing chromatic dispersion compensation.

The invention relates to a power-over-fiber (PoF) system, comprising: an optical source configured to generate an optical signal, wherein the optical signal comprises an intensity modulation; an optical fiber configured to receive the optical signal from the optical source and to guide the optical signal; an optical sink, which is configured to receive the optical signal from the optical fiber and to convert the optical signal into an electrical signal; a detection unit, which is configured to detect at least one characteristic of the electrical signal, wherein the characteristic is at least partially caused by the intensity modulation of the optical signal; and a control unit, which is configured to control the optical source based on the detected characteristic.

Embodiments of the present disclosure include optical transmitters and transceivers with improved reliability. In some embodiments, the optical transmitters are used in network devices, such as in conjunction with a network switch. In one embodiment, lasers are operated at low power to improve reliability and power consumption. The output of the laser may be modulated by a non-direct modulator and received by integrated optical components, such as a modulator and/or multiplexer. The output of the optical components may be amplified by a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). Various advantageous configurations of lasers, optical components, and SOAs are disclosed. In some embodiments, SOAs are configured as part of a pluggable optical communication module, for example.

One information processing device may comprise circuitry configured to cause an image to be displayed on a display together with a superimposed light component having a characteristic that changes as a function of time and represents a code to be processed by a receiving terminal. Another information processing device may comprise circuitry configured to process image data from an image sensor, which image data represents an image generated on a display together with a superimposed light component having a characteristic that changes as a function of time, to identify a code represented by the superimposed light component.

Methods and systems for redundant light sources by utilizing two inputs of an integrated modulator are disclosed and may include: an optoelectronic transmitter integrated in a semiconductor die with first and second laser sources coupled to the semiconductor die, said optoelectronic transmitter comprising an optical modulator with a first input waveguide coupled to the first laser source and second input waveguide coupled to the second laser source, the optoelectronic receiver being operable to: configure the first laser source to provide an optical signal to the first input of the optical modulator; and if the first laser source does not provide an optical signal, configure the second laser source to provide an optical signal to the second input of the optical modulator. The first laser source may be optically coupled to the first input waveguide and the second laser source optically coupled to the second input waveguide using grating couplers.

Probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) is applied to a desired probability distribution over the 2-D constellation points. Constellation points are partitioned into multiple disjoint sets in which all the constellation points within a subset have the same energy level (i.e., amplitude) or distance from the origin on the complex plane. Each of the sets may be further subdivided into smaller disjoint sets of constellation points to facilitate labeling of the constellation points. The sets may be indexed from 0 to the total number of disjoint sets to form an index set. The desired distribution may then be applied over the index set either using a distribution matcher (DM) or using a lookup table. The desired distribution may be generated before forward error correction (FEC) encoding that preserves the generated amplitude distribution through FEC encoding of data bits. The scheme may map the FEC encoded data bits to the constellation points, such that the probability of occurrence of each signal set (with a specific energy level) follows the desired probability distribution within a fixed codeword length. In addition, PCS can be applied to both square and non-square constellations, which may or may not be arranged on a Cartesian grid.

A driver circuit of a PAM-N transmitting device transmits a PAM-N signal via a communication channel, wherein N is greater than 2, and the PAM-N signal has N signal levels corresponding to N symbols. A PAM-N receiving device receives the PAM-N signal. The PAM-N receiving device generates distortion information indicative of a level of distortion corresponding to inequalities in voltage differences between the N signal levels. The PAM-N receiving device transmits to the PAM-N transmitting device the distortion information indicative of the level of the distortion. The PAM-N transmitting device receives the distortion information. The PAM-N transmitting device adjusts one or more drive strength parameters of the driver circuit of the PAM-N transmitting device based on the distortion information.