Impact of Noise Level on the Optimization of Parameters of 2R All-Optical Regenerator

The dependence of the bit error ratio (BER) along a 2R all-optical regenerator chain on the level of the noise introduced between regenerators, non-linearity threshold and degree is investigated numerically using the rigorous distribution for the optical power. It is shown that, when the noise level decreases, the optimum non-linearity threshold decreases also. Additionally, numerical results show that, for a non-linearity threshold higher than the optimum, a higher non-linearity degree does not lead necessarily to a smaller BER. This behaviour is analysed and explained.