High-speed data transmission over a microresonator frequency comb with dispersion compensation for augmented data rates and reach

Microresonator frequency comb-based high-speed data transmission provides a pathway towards augmented data capacity without increasing the number of laser sources. Their use with intensity-modulated direct detection modulation (IMDD) formats is especially pertinent in data center communications where minimizing cost, latency and complexity is paramount. This however implies that the same extent of digital signal processing techniques commonly used in coherent detection for the management of fiber impairments including chromatic dispersion are not available. With the proliferation of silicon photonics technologies in data center transceivers integrated dispersion compensation which can overcome fiber impairments would be of great merit. We demonstrate low power generation of the primary comb state in a silicon nitride microresonator and transmission of 25 Gb/s NRZ and 50 Gb/s PAM4 data over 20 km of single mode fiber. This represents the longest fiber reach demonstrated to date for the transmission of IMDD data using an integrated, microresonator frequency comb. An integrated, tunable grating device for dispersion compensation that reduces dispersion impairments after several fiber lengths generates significant improvements in the eye diagram, six orders of magnitude improvement in the bit-error rate and 14 dB improvement in the transmitter and dispersion eye closure quaternary values. Concurrently, doubling data transmission is demonstrated via polarization multiplexing a comb line and successful dispersion compensation of up to 20 km.