Abstract
The 1-µm wavelength band is investigated for high-speed, short-reach intensity-modulation/direct-detection (IM/DD) transmission using a 1064 nm lithium-niobate Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM). On–off keying (OOK), four-, six-, and eight-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM4, PAM6, and PAM8) are evaluated after 100 m of standard single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission and compared with optical back-to-back (ob2b) operation. Net rates of 178 Gb/s for OOK, 200 Gb/s for PAM4, and 211 Gb/s for PAM6 and PAM8 are achieved below the 6.25% overhead hard-decision forward-error-correction (HD-FEC) threshold. These results support the potential of 1064 nm externally modulated links for future low-latency short-reach interconnects and radio-access-oriented optical transport systems.