Experimental investigation of PAM, CAP and DMT modulations efficiency over a double-step-index polymer optical fiber

• Various modulations experimentally compared for SI POF channel.
• Maximum bit rates determined for PAM, CAP, and DMT modulations.
• Similar performance of PAM and CAP, inferior of DMT.

Investigated was the transmission over step index POF that is 50 m/100 m long with a red DVD laser as a source and a Si p-i-n commercial photo-detector. The maximum bit rates of three modulation formats: PAM, CAP and DMT were sought. Their constellation sizes and symbol rates were varied in order to maximize FEC limited throughputs for each modulation whereas the laser operating point and relevant optical powers were maintained constant for all the modulations. The maximum throughputs were similar for PAM and CAP, namely 3.3/2 Gbit/s for PAM, and 3.15/2.1 for CAP for 50/100 m fiber, respectively. The bit rates for DMT were 2.65/1.65 Gbit/s for the respective lengths of the fiber. We attribute the inferior performance of DMT to its high value of peak to average power ratio.