Capacity, cutoff rate, and coding for a direct-detection optical channel

It is shown that Pierce's pulse position modulation scheme with 2 to the L pulse positions used on a self-noise-limited direct detection optical communication channel results in a 2 to the L-ary erasure channel that is equivalent to the parallel combination of L completely correlated binary erasure channels. The capacity of the full channel is the sum of the capacities of the component channels, but the cutoff rate of the full channel is shown to be much smaller than the sum of the cutoff rates. An interpretation of the cutoff rate is given that suggests a complexity advantage in coding separately on the component channels. It is shown that if short-constraint-length convolutional codes with Viterbi decoders are used on the component channels, then the performance and complexity compare favorably with the Reed-Solomon coding system proposed by McEliece for the full channel. The reasons for this unexpectedly fine performance by the convolutional code system are explored in detail, as are various facets of the channel structure.