Shaped offset quadrature phase shift keying (SOQPSK) modulation scheme and its application in optical wavelength-division multiplexed (DWDM) transmission

•A new modulation scheme called offset quadrature phase shift keying is proposed.•We generate the optical SOQPSK signal by traditional Mach–Zehnder modulators.•SOQPSK is better in spectrum efficiency and not worse in BER performance than QPSK.

This paper presents a new quaternary modulation scheme called SOQPSK. The principle on the optical SOQPSK generation is derived and analyzed, which is implemented by traditional Mach–Zehnder modulators. The performance of the optical SOQPSK modulated system is evaluated and compared with those of quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and offset QPSK (OQPSK) modulation systems via simulation, in terms of spectral efficiency, receiver sensitivity and density DWDM transmission performance. Simulations show that the novel modulation scheme improves spectral efficiency for DWDM transmission and provides better transmission performance than QPSK.