Paired SSB optical OFDM channels for high spectral efficient signal transmission over DWDM networks

•New paired optical OFDM channels transmission scheme is proposed.•Experimental IM-DD OOFDM transmission of 40.8 Gb/s over 50 km fiber is demonstrated.•The viability of paired optical channels in a DWDM network is demonstrated.

A new high spectral efficient SSB-OOFDM DWDM transmission system has been experimentally demonstrated. The proposed transmitter employs paired optical channels consisting of two SSB modulated OFDM signals using opposite sidebands in order to allow an efficient use of the spectrum with optical carriers separation under 10 GHz. Moreover, different paired channels are multiplexed into the 25 GHz grid DWDM fiber transmission link. Optical carrier spacing of 8.75 GHz in paired channels has been demonstrated allowing 40.8 Gb/s signal transmission rate over a 25 GHz paired channel bandwidth.