Receiver performance of broadband data delivery on WDM systems using spectrally sliced spontaneous emission sources

Spectral slicing of spontaneous emission sources has been proposed to deliver broadcast services on WDM passive optical networks. Recent advances in ultrahigh power LEDs makes spectral slicing a more promising solution for FTTH broadband access systems. However, the output from a spontaneous emission source contains spontaneous-spontaneous emission beat noise, also called excess intensity noise. The signal to spontaneous-spontaneous emission beat noise ratio is proportional to the ratio of the optical bandwidth of the optical source to the electrical detection bandwidth. With the new requirements of delivering high speed broadband data in access networks and the introduction of closer and narrower bandwidth optical wavelength channels, the effects of spontaneous-spontaneous emission beat noise becomes more pronounced in spectrally sliced WDM systems. In this paper, we experimentally study the performance of broadband data delivery on WDM systems using spectrally sliced spontaneous emission sources.