A novel power-efficient scheme asymmetrically and symmetrically clipping optical (ASCO)-OFDM for IM/DD optical systems

In this paper, we propose a novel scheme of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for intensity modulation direct detection (IM/DD) optical systems. By using this novel scheme of an OFDM optical system, not only odd subcarriers but also even subcarriers can be modulated to transmit a clipping optical signal. A conventional asymmetrically clipping optical (ACO)-OFDM is applied to modulate odd subcarriers while even subcarriers are modulated by a novel technique called a symmetrically clipping optical (SCO)-OFDM. Although both the asymmetrically clipping noise caused by ACO-OFDM and the symmetrically clipping noise caused by SCO-OFDM fall onto the even subcarriers, the former interference can be estimated and removed at the receiver. Thus, SCO-OFDM symbols carried on the even subcarriers can be recovered by subtracting the estimated ACO-OFDM clipping noise from the received signal. Then the SCO-OFDM clipping noise can be removed by subtraction due to its special transmission format. Note that no DC bias added on all subcarriers makes this novel scheme achieve better performance in terms of both power efficiency and symbol error rate (SER).