Transmission of 32-Tb/s Capacity Over 580 km Using RZ-Shaped PDM-8QAM Modulation Format and Cascaded Multimodulus Blind Equalization Algorithm

In this paper, we propose a novel synthesizing method for high-speed 8-ary quadratic-amplitude modulation (QAM) optical signal generation using commercial optical modulators with binary electrical driving signals. Using this method, we successfully generated 114-Gb/s pulse-duration modulation (PDM)-8QAM optical signals. Intradyne detection of PDM-8QAM optical signals with robust blind polarization demultiplexing has been demonstrated by using a new cascaded multimodulus equalization algorithm. With return-to-zero-shaped PDM-8QAM modulation and the proposed blind polarization demultiplexing algorithm, we demonstrate transmission of a record 32-Tb/s fiber capacity (320 × 114 Gb/s) over 580 km of ultralow-loss single-mode fiber-28 fiber by utilizing C + L-band erbium-doped fiber-amplifier-only optical amplification and single-ended coherent detection technique at an information spectral efficiency of 4.0 bit/s·Hz.