Demonstration of 1.72 Tbit/s Optical Data Transmission Under Worst-Case Turbulence Conditions for Ground-to-Geostationary Satellite Communications

Optical dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) can provide multiple Tbit/s throughput in the future geostationary satellite communications. In this letter, the proof-of-concept demonstration of this technology under worst case atmospheric channel conditions for satellite communications in geostationary orbit is presented. The highest-to-date throughput of 1.72 Tbit/s was transmitted over 10.45 km distance with passive transmitter pointing and active receiver tracking with active single-mode fiber coupling. This throughput was achieved by modulating 40 DWDM channels with uncoded 43.01824 Gbit/s rate per channel. Direct bit-error-rate and signal fluctuations measurements were carried out to assess the link performance. No forward error correction was used.