Reconfigurable flexible PON downlink by using a wavelength selective switch and single intensity modulator

A reconfigurable passive optical network (PON) downlink has been experimentally demonstrated. A multi-carrier signal is generated in the digital domain and converted to an optical signal by a Mach-Zehnder intensity modulator. A wavelength selective switch (WSS) demultiplexes the sub-carriers for a distribution network. Each sub-carrier signal is a duo-binary filtered binary phase shift keying and directly detected at the receiver side. By changing the sub-carrier allocation and WSS port setting, the PON network can be easily reconfigured without changing the hardware configuration. The maximum capacity of 75-Gb/s with 10-km transmission and 128-way split has been achieved.