Coherent optical MIMO (COMIMO)

Abstract

We present a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) optical link based on coherent optics and its ability to exploit the inherent information capacity of multimode fiber. A coherent implementation differs from previous work in optical MIMO by allowing the system to tolerate smaller modal delay spreads, because of a much larger carrier frequency, and yet maintain the necessary diversity needed for MIMO operation. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of MIMO adaptive equalization to mitigate intersymbol interference when exceeding the bandwidth-length product of the link. The impact of phase noise is studied with numerical simulation.