QAM Receiver

1 OBJECTIVE
Build a coherent receiver based on the 90 degree optical hybrid and further investigate the QAM format.

2 PRE-LAB
In the Modulation Formats – QAM Transmitters laboratory, a method of encoding data onto the
amplitude and phase of the electric field was demonstrated. However, to extract this modulated signal
from the optical signal a different detection scheme is required since photodetectors only capture the
power of the incident field and not the phase. Previously, the electric field was found at the output of
the Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZMs) to be:
𝜋𝑉1 (𝑡) 𝑗𝜔𝑡
𝑬𝒐𝒖𝒕 (𝑡) = −𝑬𝒊𝒏 sin 𝑉𝜋
𝑒 . (1)

The secondary MZM used to modulate the quadrature phase carrier produces a phase shifted version:
𝜋𝑉2 (𝑡) 𝑗𝜔𝑡
𝑬𝒐𝒖𝒕 (𝑡) = 𝑗𝑬𝒊𝒏 sin 𝑉𝜋
𝑒 . (2)

2.1 COHERENT DETECTION WITH 90-DEGREE OPTICAL HYBRID

The method for retrieving the two signals 𝑉1 (𝑡) and 𝑉2 (𝑡) involves a continuous wave laser (called the
local oscillator) and four photodiodes. The scheme is presented below in Figure 1.

𝑰(𝒕)
𝑬𝒊𝒏

𝑸(𝒕)

Figure 1: A 90-degree optical hybrid used to extract the electrical signals.

1
Before calculating the output of the detector, the transfer functions of the cross coupler and
photodetectors needs to be known. First the electric fields at the output of the cross couplers is related
to the input by:
𝑬𝒐𝒖𝒕1 1 1 −𝑗 𝑬𝒊𝒏1
[ ] = 2[ ][ ]. (3)
𝑬𝒐𝒖𝒕 2 √ −𝑗 1 𝑬𝒊𝒏 2

Ignoring some constants, the current produced at the output of a photodetector is:

𝑰𝒐𝒖𝒕 = |𝑬𝒊𝒏 |2 = 𝑬𝒊𝒏 ∙ 𝑬𝒊𝒏 ∗ . (4)

Questions:

2.1.1 Assuming the local oscillator can be represented by 𝑬𝑳𝑶 𝑒 𝑗𝜔𝑡 and the transmitted optical
𝜋𝑉1 (𝑡) 𝑗𝜔𝑡 𝜋𝑉 (𝑡)
signal is 𝑬𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒂𝒍 (𝑡) = −𝑬𝒊𝒏 sin 𝑒 +𝑗𝑬𝒊𝒏 sin 2 𝑒 𝑗𝜔𝑡 , find the detected signal
𝑉𝜋 𝑉𝜋
before each of the four photodetectors.

2.1.2 Using these four representations of the field, find the currents at the output of the
photodetectors and finally the main two current resulting from the subtraction.

2.1.3 For small voltages, the expressions for output current found above are approximately
linear. However, for large voltages the linearity is loss. How should the signal be pre-
distorted to regain the linearity?

3 COHERENT COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

3.1 BACK TO BACK SYSTEM

The most basic and ideal situation of a coherent system is a modulator followed directly by a
demodulator without any actual transmission link in between. Such a set up minimizes the sources of
noise and distortion inherent in communication systems. Starting first with this basic setup is an
important first step to not only confirm that a communication scheme is working, but also to tweak
parameters to minimize sources of distortion in the modulator and demodulator. Build the 16 QAM back
to back system shown in Figure 2 from the list of components:

 BER Test Set Test Sets/Binary

 QAM Sequence Generator Transmitters Library/Coders
 M-ary Pulse Generator Transmitters Library/Pulse Generators/Electrical
 CW Laser Transmitters Library/Optical Sources
 LiNb Mach-Zehnder Modulator Transmitters Library/Modulators/Optical
 Electrical Gain Signal Processing/Arithmetic/Electrical
 Electrical Bias Signal Processing/Arithmetic/Electrical
 Electrical Subtractor Signal Processing Library/Arithmetic/Electrical
 Phase Shift Passives Library/Optical
 X Coupler Passives Library/Optical/Couplers

2
  PIN Photodiode Receivers Library/PIN Photodiode
 QAM Sequence Decoder Receivers Library/Decoder
 Decision Receivers Library/Demodulators
 Fork Tools Library

Component Properties
BER Test Set
Number of leading zeros 32
Number of trailing zeros 32
Polarization Type Single
CW Laser
Linewidth 0.1 MHz
Generate random seed Disabled
LiNb Mach-Zehnder Modulator
Extinction Ratio 25 dB
Switching bias voltage 3V
Switching RF voltage 3V
Insertion Loss 1 dB
Phase Shift
Phase shift 90 degrees
X Coupler
Additional Loss 1 dB
PIN Photodiode
Noise calculation type Numerical – Convert noise bins
Decision
Polarization Type Single
Modulation Format 16QAM
DC Blocking Enabled
Normalize Enabled

3
 QAM
Modulator

QAM
Demodulator

Figure 2: A back to back 16 QAM system consisting of a quadrature modulator and a coherent receiver making use of a 90
degree optical hybrid.

Questions:

3.1.1 Set the electrical bias to ±1.5 V and electrical gain to ±0.32 for the top and bottom arms
of the MZMs. Place a constellation visualizer after the Electrical Subtractors to confirm
the correct constellation of 16 QAM. To achieve a full constellation the Sequence length
may need to be increased, so that the chances of generating all the possible symbols is
greater.

3.1.2 This coherent receiver design is in fact unrealistic. The receiver design relies on the fact
that the local oscillator has the same phase as the transmitter laser, but unless the same
exact laser is used there will be a random difference in phase between the two lasers.
Run the simulation again but set the local oscillator laser to generate a random seed in
the component properties. Describe the constellation diagram.

4
 3.1.3 Return the CW Lasers to the initial parameters, where they each have the same random
seed of 0. As shown in the pre lab the detected electrical signals are not the exact input
voltages. For a suitably long bit sequence length plot the BER as a function of the
electrical gain starting from 0.5 and ending at 0.1. Explain why the gain effects the BER
as it does.

3.2 QAM SPECTRAL EFFICIENCY

The ideal QAM transmitter creates a perfect constellation diagram with no distortion introduced from
the MZMs or the random phase from the continuous wave laser. One of the main benefits of a QAM
transmission format is that the spectral range is used more efficiently. This can be seen qualitatively
from the fact that the symbol periods of a 4 QAM system are twice as long as the bit periods of an On-
Off Keying format, which means you need roughly half the signal bandwidth.

The spectral efficiency gives a measure of how many bits per second can be transmitted per Hertz of
bandwidth used. The expression for spectral efficiency is given by Equation 5.
𝐺𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠 𝐵𝑖𝑡 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑒
𝑆𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 = (5)
𝑆𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑤𝑖𝑑𝑡ℎ

For many types of signals the bandwidth can be difficult to give an exact value and that is because the
Fourier transform of rectangular pulses gives a sine cardinal shape to the frequencies amplitudes.
Although the frequencies drop in amplitude as they get larger, discarding the higher frequencies can
distort the time domain signal. Simpler modulation formats like NRZ allow for simply filtering out the
higher frequencies, for example the signal below can filtered out to leave only the first hump. This
translates to a signal bandwidth of 10 GHz.

Figure 3: Power spectrum of detected 10 Gbps NRZ format.

If the same trick is applied to a modulation such as 16 QAM, the signal will be heavily distorted and the
decision component will have a hard time decoding the proper symbols. However, instead of using an
M-ary Pulse Generator in the modulator, which generates multilevel rectangular pulses, a pulse which

5
has a frequency limited property can be employed. In fact the answer is shown in Figure 3! If the rough
signal shape of Figure 3 is used as the time domain pulse, the Fourier transform will be constrained
within the low frequencies. The M-ary Raised Cosine Pulse Generator is the exact component that can
be used to create this type of signal. The raised cosine pulse overlaps with adjacent bits and can cause
errors near the beginning and end of the bit sequence. For this reason, the first and last few bits are
ignored from the sequence and are called guard bits.

The frequency domain signal in Figure 4 is tightly confined to frequencies less than 10 GHz. It is much
clearer in this case that the signal bandwidth is indeed 10 GHz. Thus, the spectral efficiency of this
format is 1 (bit/s)/Hz.

Figure 4: Power spectrum of detected 10 Gbps using the raised cosine pulse generator.

3.2.1 Create a subsystem that encapsulates the QAM Transmitter built in Figure 2. To idealize
the transmitter, change the laser line width, MZM extinction ratio and the losses
present in both the MZMs and the X couplers to values that will minimize distortion and
noise. Idealize the receiver by modifying the local oscillator linewidth and by removing
the noise from the photodetectors.

3.2.2 Replace the M-ary Pulse Generator components in the modulator with M-ary Raised
Cosine Pulse Generators. Set the number of guard bits in the layout parameters to 16.
Using the ideal transmitter find the spectral efficiency of 16 QAM, 64 QAM and 256
QAM formats. Plot the measured signal bandwidth at one of the Electrical Subtractor
outputs.

3.2.1 Explain the significance of spectral efficiency and how it relates to a wavelength division
multiplexed system.

6
4 REPORT
In your lab report include the following:

 Brief overview of the background and theory.

 Answers to all pre lab questions, clearly showing your work.
 Brief description of the simulation method and setup, including screenshots.
 Final results including figures and discussion.

5 REFERENCES
[1] Agrawal, G. P. Fiber-optic Communication Systems. New York: Wiley, 1997. Print