The effect of AWG-filtering on a bidirectional WDM-PON link with spectrum-sliced signals and wavelength-reused signals

The AWG-filtering effect was investigated on a bidirectional 100-GHz-channel-spacing WDM-PON link using spectrum-sliced and RSOA-amplified light sources for downstream signals and a wavelength reuse technique for upstream signals. Three different AWGs including Gaussian, trapezoidal, and rectangular filtering types were applied and their signal performance was compared for link transmission. The performance influence to both directional signals was analyzed and optimized according to an extinction ratio of a downstream signal. It was found that there was an optimal pass bandwidth of AWG for achieving balance between relative intensity noise decrement and cross phase modulation noise increment as the bandwidth got wider.