Optical Fiber Telecommunications VIB: Chapter 8. Multicarrier Optical Transmission (Optics and Photonics)

In this chapter, we present an overview of multicarrier transmission and its application to optical communication. Specifically, we first introduce the historical perspectives in the development of optical multicarrier technologies. We then present different variants of optical multicarrier transmission. We also highlight the problem of fiber nonlinearity in optical multicarrier transmission systems and present an analysis of fiber capacity under nonlinear impairments. Furthermore, we discuss applications of multicarrier techniques to long-haul systems, access networks, and free-space optical communication systems. Finally, we summarize with some possible research directions in implementing multicarrier technologies in optical transmission.