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Optical wireless communication (OWC) has recently received massive interest as a new technology that can support the enormous data traffic increasing on daily basis. Laser-based OWC networks can provide terabits per second (Tbps) aggregate data rates. However, the emerging OWC networks require clusters of optical transmitters to provide uniform coverage for multiple users. In this context, multi-user interference (MUI) is a crucial issue that must be managed efficiently to provide high spectral efficiency. Rate splitting (RS) is proposed as a transmission scheme to serve multiple users simultaneously by splitting the message of a given user into common and private messages, and then, each user decodes the desired message following a certain procedure. In radio frequency (RF) networks, RS provides higher spectral efficiency compared with orthogonal and non-orthogonal transmission schemes. Considering the high density of OWC networks, the performance of RS is limited by the cost of providing channel state information (CSI) at transmitters and by the noise resulting from interference cancellation. In this work, a user-grouping algorithm is proposed and used to form multiple groups, each group contains users spatially clustered. Then, an outer precoder is designed to manage inter-group interference following the methodology of blind interference alignment (BIA), which reduces the requirements of CSI at RF or optical transmitters. For intra-group interference, RS is applied within each group where the users belonging to a given group receive a unique common message on which their private messages are superimposed. Furthermore, an optimization problem is formulated to allocate the power among the private messages intended to all users such that the sum rate of the network is maximized.

Advanced quantum technologies require sources of non-Gaussian and non-classical light. For the understanding of properties of quantum light it is necessary to reconstruct its quantum state. Here, we use time-domain optical homodyne tomography for the quantum state recognition and reconstruction of the femtosecond optical field from a nonequilibrium superradiant coherent electron–hole state formed in a semiconductor GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. We observe severe deviations from the Poissonian statistics of the photons associated with the coherent state when the transformation from lasing to superradiance occurs. The estimated Mandel parameter Q of the superradiant states is in the range of 1.08–1.89. The reconstructed Wigner functions show large areas of negative values, a characteristic sign of non-classicality, demonstrating the quantum nature of the generated superradiant emission. The photon number distribution and Wigner function of the superradiant state are very similar to those of the displaced Fock state.

Optical interconnects play a key role in the implementation of high-speed short-reach communication links within high-performance electronic systems. Multimode polymer waveguides in particular are strong candidates for use in passive optical backplanes as they can be cost-effectively integrated onto standard PCBs. Various optical backplanes using this technology and featuring a large number of multimode polymer waveguide components have been recently demonstrated. The optimisation of the loss performance of these complex waveguide layouts becomes particularly important at high data rates (>=25 Gb/s) due to the associated stringent power budget requirements. Moreover, launch conditions have to be carefully considered in such systems due to the highly-multimoded nature of this waveguide technology. In this paper therefore, we present thorough loss and bandwidth studies on siloxane-based multimode waveguides and waveguide components (i.e. bends and crossings) that enable the implementation of passive optical backplanes. The performance of these components is experimentally investigated under different launch conditions for different waveguide profiles that can be readily achieved through fabrication. Useful design rules on the use of waveguide bends and crossings are derived for each waveguide type. It is shown that the choice of waveguide parameters depends on the particular waveguide layout, assumed launch conditions and desired link bandwidth. As an application of these studies, the obtained results are employed to optimise the loss performance of a 10-card shuffle router and enable >=40 Gb/s data transmission., 7 pages, 12 figures

Bandwidth measurements are conducted on a 1.4 m long spiral polymer multimode waveguide for a SMF and 50/125 um MMF launch and for different input offsets. The waveguide exhibits a bandwidth of at least 30 GHz for all input types, yielding a bandwidth-length product of at least 42 GHzxm, while no impact is observed on the waveguide performance due to the different spatial input offsets. The results indicate that data transmission at data rates even higher than 25 Gb/s can be achieved over such structures, thereby demonstrating the potential of multimode polymer waveguide technologies in short-reach board-level datacommunication links., Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure