Mode- and wavelength-multiplexed transmission with crosstalk mitigation using a single amplified spontaneous emission source

We propose to use the low-coherence property of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise to mitigate optical crosstalk, such as spatial, polarization, and modal crosstalk, which currently limits the density of photonic integration and fibers for dense space-division multiplexing. High optical crosstalk tolerance can be achieved by ASE-based low-coherence matched detection, which avoids dedicated optical lasers and uses spectrally filtered ASE noise as the signal carrier and as a matched local oscillator. We experimentally demonstrate spatial and modal crosstalk reduction in multimode fiber (MMF) and realize mode- and wavelength-multiplexed transmission over 1.5-km MMF supporting three spatial modes using a single ASE source. Performance degradation due to model dispersion over MMF is experimentally investigated.