Single and entangled photon manipulation for photonic quantum technologies

Photonic quantum technologies that harness the fundamental laws of quantum physics open the possibility of developing quantum computing and communication that could show unprecedented computational power on specific problems and unconditional information security, respectively. However, the lack of high-efficiency single-photon sources and integrated photonic circuits that can generate, manipulate and analyse entanglement states are the major hurdles to demonstrate the quantum advantages. The potential solutions are clearly explained in this thesis. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview that explains the theme of each chapter. Chapter 2 emphasises the importance of a high-efficiency single-photon source and an integrated time-bin entanglement chip, after explaining the advantages of photonic quantum computing and communication over their classical counterparts. In Chapter 3, three different temporal multiplexing schemes are experimentally demonstrated as the potential solutions to build a high-efficiency single-photon source. Chapter 3 also identifies the potential limitations of temporal multiplexing with high repetition rate. In Chapter 4, the linear processing circuits and nonlinear photon source are separately demonstrated in a low-loss double-stripe silicon nitride waveguide. In the final section of Chapter 4, an integrated silicon nitride time-bin entanglement chip that combines linear processing circuits and nonlinear photon sources is demonstrated as a potential solution to build a robust, scalable and cost-efficient quantum network in the real world. After a succinct summarisation, the final chapter briefly discusses the promising strategies and platforms to build an integrated high-efficiency single-photon source and an integrated quantum node with broad bandwidth and long storage time

DSP-enabled Reconfigurable Optical Network Devices and Architectures for Cloud Access Networks

To meet the ever-increasing bandwidth requirements, the rapid growth in highly dynamic traffic patterns, and the increasing complexity in network operation, whilst providing high power consumption efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the approach of combining traditional optical access networks, metropolitan area networks and 4-th generation (4G)/5-th generation (5G) mobile front-haul/back-haul networks into unified cloud access networks (CANs) is one of the most preferred “future-proof” technical strategies. The aim of this dissertation research is to extensively explore, both numerically and experimentally, the technical feasibility of utilising digital signal processing (DSP) to achieve key fundamental elements of CANs from device level to network architecture level including: i) software reconfigurable optical transceivers, ii) DSP-enabled reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), iii) network operation characteristics-transparent digital filter multiple access (DFMA) techniques, and iv) DFMA-based passive optical network (PON) with DSP-enabled software reconfigurability. As reconfigurable optical transceivers constitute fundamental building blocks of the CAN’s physical layer, digital orthogonal filtering-based novel software reconfigurable transceivers are proposed and experimentally and numerically explored, for the first time. By making use of Hilbert-pair-based 32-tap digital orthogonal filters implemented in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), a 2GS/s@8-bit digital-to-analogue converter (DAC)/analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), and an electro-absorption modulated laser (EML) intensity modulator (IM), world-first reconfigurable real-time transceivers are successfully experimentally demonstrated in a 25km IMDD SSMF system. The transceiver dynamically multiplexes two orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) channels with a total capacity of 3.44Gb/s. Experimental results also indicate that the transceiver performance is fully transparent to various subcarrier modulation formats of up to 64-QAM, and that the maximum achievable transceiver performance is mainly limited by the cross-talk effect between two spectrally-overlapped orthogonal channels, which can, however, be minimised by adaptive modulation of the OFDM signals. For further transceiver optimisations, the impacts of major transceiver design parameters including digital filter tap number and subcarrier modulation format on the transmission performance are also numerically explored. II Reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) are also vital networking devices for application in CANs as they play a critical role in offering fast and flexible network reconfiguration. A new optical-electrical-optical (O-E-O) conversion-free, software-switched flexible ROADM is extensively explored, which is capable of providing dynamic add/drop operations at wavelength, sub-wavelength and orthogonal sub-band levels in software defined networks incorporating the reconfigurable transceivers. Firstly, the basic add and drop operations of the proposed ROADMs are theoretically explored and the ROADM designs are optimised. To crucially validate the practical feasibility of the ROADMs, ROADMs are experimentally demonstrated, for the first time. Experimental results show that the add and drop operation performances are independent of the sub-band signal spectral location and add/drop power penalties are <2dB. In addition, the ROADMs are also robust against a differential optical power dynamic range of >2dB and a drop RF signal power range of 7.1dB. In addition to exploring key optical networking devices for CANs, the first ever DFMA PON experimental demonstrations are also conducted, by using two real-time, reconfigurable, OOFDM-modulated optical network units (ONUs) operating on spectrally overlapped multi-Gb/s orthogonal channels, and an offline optical line terminal (OLT). For multipoint-to-point upstream signal transmission over 26km SSMF in an IMDD DFMA PON, experiments show that each ONU achieves a similar upstream BER performance, excellent robustness to inter-ONU sample timing offset (STO) and a large ONU launch power variation range. Given the importance of IMDD DFMA-PON channel frequency response roll-off, both theoretical and experimental explorations are undertaken to investigate the impact of channel frequency response roll-off on the upstream transmission of the DFMA PON system Such work provides valuable insights into channel roll-off-induced performance dependencies to facilitate cost-effective practical network/transceiver/component designs

Optical code division multiple access systems in AlGaInAs/InP

The rise of photonic integration makes optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) worth revisiting due to its promising role in future all-optical networks. OCDMA has the potential to exploit the surplus bandwidth of optical fibres and to carry over to the optical domain the benefits seen CDMA radio communication systems, such as the effective sharing of the spectrum for multiple network subscribers, and resistance to jamming and eavesdropping. One of the major requirements for the deployment of OCDMA in networks is integration. This thesis presents a research study of integrated OCDMA systems using the AlGaInAs/InP semiconductor material system. This material is considered due to its useful intrinsic properties such as thermal stability, strong electron confinement, and low threshold, making it suitable for fabricating optoelectronic devices. Two bespoke OCDMA systems are considered for integration: coherent temporal phase coding (TPC), and incoherent wavelength-hopping time-spreading (WHTS) OCDMA systems. TPC systems are excellent for high speed communications due to their static en/decoding enabling features. In this research, a 2×2 asymmetric Mach Zehnder interferometer (AMZI) is used to generate a 2-bit phase code, allowing multiplexing for up to four users. A semiconductor mode-locked ring laser is also embedded in the circuit, and using a synchronous mode-locking method, adequate signal en/decoding is achieved. WHTS systems on the other hand fully exploit the spectral and temporal space available in networks by assigning each user with a unique wavelength-time hop sequence for en/decoding data signals. Here, a mode-locked laser array is used with intracavity distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) for spectrally tuning each laser, and a 4:1 multimode interference coupler is used to combine the laser signals into a single channel for amplification, modulation and transmission. The integrated system is fully characterised and synchronisation experiments are performed to show the potential for its use in high speed multi-user networks. Mode-locked lasers play an important role in many OCDMA implementations due to their wide spectrum and discrete temporal properties, which can be easily exploited during data en/decoding. Various mode-locked laser devices have been studied during this research with additional embedded components such as intracavity DBRs and phase controllers for precise tuning of the wavelength and pulse repetition frequency. However, the noisy nature of passively operating mode-locked lasers make them prone to high jitter, which can result in high bit error rates. Synchronisation schemes are thereby explored in order to temporally stabilise the pulse oscillations to make them suitable for use in long haul transmission systems. This includes synchronous and hybrid mode-locking, as well as a passive technique using an optical fibre loop to provide phase feedback, which is shown to promote ultralow RF linewidths in mode-locked lasers

Passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers for all-optical applications

The recent increase of internet traffic is creating demand for higher bandwidth in telecommunication networks. In order to satisfy this ever increasing demand for bandwidth, it is necessary to investigate new devices and technologies for all-optical signal processing that allow increasing the transmission data rate and the capacity for the current and future optical networks. Optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) is a widely deployed technique that allows increasing the bit rate and capacity of optical networks. In OTDM networks the regeneration and the demultiplexing of the data channels are two common and important functions normally carried out. However, they require a clock signal, which is usually implemented by optoelectronics components, making a system expensive, bulky and difficult to implement. In order to provide a solution to this issue, the focus of this thesis is to investigate all-optical clock recovery by using external injection locking of passively semiconductor mode-locked lasers. In particular, quantum-dash mode-locked laser diodes (QDash-MLLDs) are studied. These lasers can generate optical pulses with durations in the order of picoseconds and femtoseconds using only DC-bias with no need for external modulation. Besides, they are attractive due to their simplicity of operation, low power consumption, fast carrier dynamics and compactness. Furthermore, they provide a narrow radio frequency beating linewidth, resulting in a small amount of phase noise and low timing jitter. In this thesis, all-optical clock recovery of data signals at base bit rate (40 Gb/s) and high bit rates (up to 320 Gb/s) was achieved using QDash-MLLDs. The recovered clocks from the different data input signals considered in this thesis feature low values of timing jitter, which are compliant with the minimum requirements for practical applications. Furthermore, the recovered clocks at high speed are used to demultiplex signals to tributaries of 40 Gb/s, achieving error free performance. Finally, investigation of the QDash-MLLD dynamics demonstrated that the laser provides a very fast locking time (25 ns) when synchronised to data signals which enables it as a solution to optical burst/packet switched networks. All these results contribute to demonstrate that the laser is an extremely reliable, cost-effective and a green solution for all-optical signal processing

Design and analysis of adaptively modulated optical orthogonal frequency division multiple access multiband passive optical networks

The aim of this thesis is to explore innovative technical solutions of utilising Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OOFDM) in intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) based future access networks to provide multi-service capability with a minimum 1 Gb/s per user. This thesis extensively investigates and analyses the feasibility and performance of adaptively modulated optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing multiple access passive optical networks (AMOOFDMA PONs) upstream transmission systems by numerically simulating AMOOFDMA PONs using experimentally determined parameters. OOFDM transceivers incorporating reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOAs) and distributed feedback (DFB) lasers are utilised in the transceivers and intensity modulation and direct detection (IMDD) transmission systems are also employed to achieve a low complexity, high speed and large bandwidth PON as a solution for next generation access networks. Numerical simulations has also being undertaken to improve overall AMOOFDMA PON performance and power budget by incorporating optical band-pass filters (OBPFs) at the output of optical network units (ONUs). A major challenge of making PONs spectrally efficient has been addressed in this thesis by investigating the AMOOFDMA PON with ONUs on a single upstream wavelength. The performance of the single upstream wavelength AMOOFDMA PON is compared to the multiple wavelength AMOOFDMA PON. Another major challenge in AMOOFDMA PONs namely improving system capacity has also been addressed by implementing multiband transmission in an AMOOFDMA PON. Results show that for a multiple upstream OOFDMA IMDD PON system over 25 km single mode fibre (SMF) can achieve an aggregated data rate of 11.25 Gb/s and the minimum wavelength spacing between ONUs are independent of the number of ONUs. Results also show that a single upstream wavelength AMOOFDMA IMDD PON with multiband incorporated at the ONUs can achieve a aggregated line rate of 21.25 Gb/s over 25 km SMF

Advanced high speed data and clock transmission over optical fibre for square kilometre telescope array

There is an ever present need from Internet users for more bandwidth. This is manifested by continuous increase in bandwidth demanding applications such as 5G wireless, new end user consumer links like thunderbolt, video conferencing, high definition video-on-demand transmitted over the Internet and massive data transfers required with and within data centres for backup, storage and data processing in cloud computing. Fibre optic communications technologies are playing a pivotal role in communication, being a major enabling technology in our increasingly Internet-centric society. As network services continue to become more dynamic and diverse, Internet service providers are faced with a challenge of cost reduction in the transmission network, power and spectral efficiency as well as scalability of the optical network infrastructure to support incremental expansions and virtual machines. Intelligent design of terrestrial optical networks to allow for simultaneous signal transmission through shared network infrastructure, and the use of low cost, power efficient, high bandwidth transmitters such as vertical surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) as well as exploitation of spectral efficient in-complex advanced modulation formats is a viable approach to this situation. In this study, techniques for spectral efficiency upgrade and simultaneous transmission of data signal, reference frequency (RF) clock signal and pulse-per-second (PPS) over shared infrastructure have experimentally been optimized in a laboratory environment for adoption in next-generation telescope array networks such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), time keeping systems such as banking systems, Coordinated Universal Time(UTC) timing and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), as well as high capacity spectral efficient short reach optical fibre networks such as data centres. This work starts by experimentally optimizing VCSEL technology for simultaneous transmission of 10 Gbps data and 1.712 GHz RF clock signal over a single G. 655 optical fibre of length 24.75 Km at different channel spacing and different propagation direction for implementation in a cost effective next-generation telescope array network. The wavelength tuneability property of VCSEL transmitters allows for wavelength adjustment, a key requirement for simultaneous data and RF clock signal transmission over a single optical fibre. A receiver sensitivity of -19.19 dBm was experimentally achieved at back-to-back analysis. A 24.75 Km of simultaneous data and RF clock signal transmission performed at 0.4 nm channel spacing introduced a transmission penalty of 1.07 dB and 1.63 dB for counter and co-propagation scheme respectively. This work mainly utilized direct modulation and direct detection using a positive intrinsic negative (PIN) due to its simplicity and cost effectiveness. A novel modulation technique for simultaneous data and polarization-based pulse-per-second timing clock signal transmission using a single VCSEL carrier is experimentally demonstrated. Two signal types, a directly modulated 10 Gbps data signal and a polarization-based pulse per second (PPS) clock signal are modulated onto a single mode 10 GHz bandwidth VCSEL carrier at 1310 nm. Spectral efficiency is maximized by exploiting the inherent orthogonal polarization switching of the xiv VCSEL with changing bias in transmission of the PPS signal. A 10 Gbps VCSEL transmission with PPS over 11 Km of G.652 fibre introduced a transmission penalty of 0.52 dB. The contribution of PPS clock signal to this penalty was found to be 0.08 dB. A technique for simultaneous directly modulated data and phase modulated reference clock signal transmission over a signal channel in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) solutions is experimentally demonstrated. This is to prepare solutions to the ever-increasing demand over gigabit/s, terabit/s and gigahertz capacities in WDM-based terrestrial optical fibre transmission systems such as telescope array networks. a total capacity of 30 Gbps (310 Gbps) data and 12 GHz ( 4 3 GHz) reference clock signal are multiplexed at a channel spacing of 100 GHz and simultaneously transmitted over a single mode G.655 fibre of length 24.73 Km. The recovery of the phase modulated RF clock signal using a differential delay line interferometry technique is experimentally demonstrated. A 625 Gbps (2525 Gbps) DWDM data transmission system is further implemented in simulation by multiplexing 25 channels at 25 Gbps per channel using 50 GHz channel spacing. A four level pulse amplitude modulation (4-PAM) data modulation format employing VCSELs is experimentally demonstrated for adoption in high bitrate networks such as big data science projects and data centre networks. 4-PAM offers a good trade-off between complexity, efficiency, reach, and sensitivity. A software defined digital signal processing (DSP) receiver is designed and implemented in MATLAB to recover the transmitted 4-PAM data signal cost effectively without the necessity of costly receiver hardware. A novel technique for maximizing carrier spectral efficiency through simultaneous 20 Gbps 4-PAM data and phase modulated 2 GHz RF clock signal transmission on a single mode 10 GHz bandwidth VCSEL carrier at 1310 nm is experimentally demonstrated for the first time to the best of our knowledge. Data transmission and clock stability performance of the designed high spectral efficient VCSEL-based link network is evaluated through BER curve plots, phase noise measurements and Allan variance analysis respectively. VCSEL-based Raman amplification is experimentally demonstrated as a viable approach for RF clock signal distribution in extended reach astronomical telescope array networks and other extended reach terrestrial optical fibre network application. This is achieved by adopting two pumping techniques namely forward pumping and backward pumping. A maximum on off gain of 5.7 dB and 1.5 dB was experimentally attained for forward pumping and backward pumping at 24 dBm pump power respectively, while a maximum 100.8 Km fibre transmission achieved experimentally. In summary, this study has successfully demonstrated in-complex, spectral efficient, low cost and power efficient simultaneous data signal, reference frequency (RF) clock signal and pulse-per-second (PPS) transmission techniques over shared network infrastructure. Simultaneous transmission of data, RF clock and PPS timing signal is relevant in nextgeneration telescope array networks such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), time keeping systems such as banking systems, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) timing and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), as well as high capacity spectral efficient short reach optical fibre networks such as data centres

Noise Suppression in OCDMA Networks using Nonlinear Optical Devices

Optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) is a multiplexing technique that has a number of inherent advantages that make it suitable for use in passive optical networks, such as allowing subscribers to transmit information in an asynchronous fashion over a single optical fibre. This form of multiplexing can provide a higher degree of flexibility and simplicity in comparison to other techniques. However, due to the asynchronous nature of transmission, OCDMA networks suffer from multiple access interference (MAI) and optical beat noise which severely impairs system performance. A number of solutions have been proposed to mitigate these noise sources. Increasing the optical code lengths used can reduce the level of optical beat noise, however this is generally at the expense of transmission speed and increased transmitter complexity. MAI suppression can be achieved through the use fibre-based nonlinear thresholders or optical time-gating. One problem with these solutions is the requirement of long lengths of nonlinear fibre that are susceptible to changes in environmental conditions. Therefore, this thesis focuses on the development and testing of a nonlinear optical receiver based on semiconductor devices for the suppression of noise in OCDMA systems. The nonlinear optical process of two-photon absorption (TPA) in a commercially available 1.3 micron Fabry-P´erot laser is investigated as a method for optical thresholding in an OCDMA system. It is shown that the use of a saturable absorber (SA) directly before the TPA-based detector can provide additional suppression of MAI noise. However, the level of beat noise that is present on the optical signal can be increased due to the nonlinear responses of both devices. As a result, a gain-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is demonstrated as a method for the reduction of optical beat noise. It is shown that error-free performance can be achieved in an optical testbed designed to simulate an OCDMA system using an SA-SOA-TPA-based receiver. The performance improvement due to the suppression of MAI and beat noise using an SA-SOA receiver is examined in relation to a current fibre-based thresholding technique; a Mamyshev filter. It is shown that the SA-SOA receiver can offer a similar level of improvement when compared to the performance of a Mamyshev filter