Carrier-assisted differential detection
(PHYSorg.com Physics)

Hyperscale datacenters have sprung up across the globe rapidly. This generate tremendous demand for high-capacity, cost-effective optical communication links that interconnect them. Engineers at the University of Melbourne invented an innovative signal reception scheme tailored for datacenter applications where the complex-valued double-sideband signals can be recovered via direct detection. The receiver architecture opens a new class of direct detection schemes that are suitable for photonic integration analogous to homodyne receivers in coherent detection.