Suppression of optical beat interference-noise in orthogonal frequency division multiple access-passive optical network link using self-homodyne balanced detection

•We propose a new technique which can reduce an OBI-noise in OFDMA link.•It uses self-homodyne balanced detection in order to suppress the OBI-noise.•The OSNR for BER of 10−5 is reduced by 2 dB in the balanced detection compared with a single channel.

A new technique, which reduces optical beat interference (OBI) noise in orthogonal frequency division multiple access-passive optical network (OFDMA-PON) links, is proposed. A self-homodyne balanced detection, which uses a single laser for the optical line terminal (OLT) as well as for the optical network unit (ONU), reduces OBI noise and also improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the discrete multi-tone (DMT) signal. The proposed scheme is verified by transmitting quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK)-modulated DMT signal over a 20-km single mode fiber. The optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR), that is required for BER of 10−5, is reduced by 2 dB in the balanced detection compared with a single channel due to the cancellation of OBI noise in conjunction with the local laser.