Determination of spectral limits imposed by four-wave mixing and amplified spontaneous emission in the 1550 nm region

Abstract

Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems are normally limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phase modulation (XPM) and four-wave mixing (FWM) besides amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise from erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). In this paper, theoretical calculation of FWM-based limits and noise from EDFAs in the 1535–1565 nm region, are reported. Results show that FWM power per channel extended from −55 to −20 dBm for dispersion values of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 ps (nm⋅km)−1. In a similar manner, for negative dispersion coefficient (D) values ranging from 0.0 to −1.5 ps (nm⋅km)−1, the FWM power per channel extended from −60 to −30 dBm. As for the maximum span length, the calculations demonstrated a rigorous limitation due to noise, suggesting error compensation techniques. A full set of results for the design of multi-span links is included.