Single-step digital backpropagation for subcarrier-multiplexing transmissions

We propose and demonstrate a single-step digital back propagation (DBP) algorithm for metro and regional transmissions with high order modulation formats. Based on subcarrier-multiplexing (SCM)-DBP, two modifications are made to improve performance and reduce complexity for the targeted link scenarios. First, an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter is adopted in self-subcarrier nonlinear compensation. Second, the second stage chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation is incorporated into an existing adaptive filter. Through experiment, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed scheme, denoted as M-SCM-DBP, for single channel 34.94-GBd SCM PDM-32QAM transmission. With 86.3% complexity reduction compared with the low-pass filter assisted DBP, the proposed M-SCM-DBP achieves 0.6-dB Q² improvement for SCM-PDM-32QAM transmission over 960-km standard single mode fiber (SSMF). The reach extension of 36% to 1220-km is achieved with only 30.5 complex multiplications per sample, in comparison with the linear compensation scheme. Since the adaptive filter is used to simultaneously compensate 50% CD and other linear impairments, we also investigate the required number of filter taps and its polarization tracking ability.