Point-to-point intensity modulation and direct detection flexible transceivers incorporating cascaded inverse fast fourier transform/fast fourier transform-based multi-channel aggregation/de-aggregation techniques

Point-to-point (P2P) flexible transceivers are the key technical enabler to cost-effectively offer fast, dynamic, and ‘just-the-right-size’ ultra-dense P2P connectivity for various applications including remote equipment control and distributed fibre networks. However, existing flexible transceivers originally designed for hub-and-spoke traffic patterns are sub-optimal. To effectively address such technical issue, a P2P flexible transceiver incorporating a cascaded inverse fast fourier transform/fast fourier transform-based multi-channel aggregation/de-aggregation technique and analogue in-phase and quadrature (IQ) mixers is proposed and numerically evaluated in a 56Gbps@20 km intensity modulation and direct detection transmission system. The proposed P2P flexible transceivers not only support adaptive and flexible variations in both channel count and channel line rate but also offer additional physical layer network security.