Reducing bit-error rate with optical phase regeneration in multilevel modulation formats

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the benefits of using all-optical phase regeneration in a long-haul fiber optic link. We also introduce a design for a device capable of phase regeneration without phase-to-amplitude noise conversion. We simulate numerically the bit-error rate of a wavelength division multiplexed optical communication system over many fiber spans with periodic reamplification and compare the results obtained with and without phase regeneration at half the transmission distance when using the new design or an existing design. Depending on the modulation format, our results suggest that all-optical phase regeneration can reduce the bit-error rate by up to two orders of magnitude and that the amplitude preserving design offers a 50% reduction in bit-error rate relative to existing technology.