Coupled-Core Transmission over 7-Core Fiber

Abstract

We show combined SDM/WDM transmission over a novel 7-core coupled-core fiber over distances up to 12100 km for QPSK and 4400 km for 16QAM signals, with corresponding spectral efficiency of 21 bit/s/Hz and 42 bit/s/Hz. The measurements show that such a 7-core fiber clearly outperforms an equivalent single-mode fiber resulting in more than 7 times the capacity.