Comparison of Set-Partitioned Two-Polarization 16QAM Formats with PDM-QPSK and PDM-8QAM for Optical Transmission Systems with Error-Correction Coding

Abstract

We compare set partitioned two-polarization 16QAM formats with conventional PDM-QPSK and PDM-8QAM formats by considering error correction coding. We particularly show that 128SP-16QAM appear as a competitive alternative to PDM-8QAM for spectrally efficient (>4 b/s/Hz) optical transmission systems using forward error-correction coding.