Comparison of Asymmetrically Clipped Optical OFDM and DC-Biased Optical OFDM in AWGN

We present theoretical and simulation results for the performance of asymmetrically-clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) and DC-biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) in AWGN for intensity-modulated direct-detection systems. Constellations from 4 QAM to 1024 QAM are considered. For DCO-OFDM, the optimum bias depends on the constellation size which limits its performance in adaptive systems. ACO-OFDM requires less optical power for a given data rate than DCO-OFDM for all but the largest constellations and is better suited to adaptive systems as the same structure is optimum for all constellations.