A novel electronic dispersion pre-compensation scheme for a directly modulated laser is described and experimentally demonstrated for transmission distances beyond 200 km using a low-cost laser packaged for 2.5-Gb/s while operated at 10.709-Gb/s. A single look-up-table (LUT) for the drive current is designed to mitigate the effects of fiber dispersion, the intrinsic nonlinear modulation response of the laser, and the laser package. Experimental results show that an 11-bit LUT can compensate the dispersion of 202 km of standard single mode fiber with a required optical-signal-to-noise-ratio of 18.61 dB at a bit error ratio of 3.8 × 10(-3).
© 2011 Optical Society of America