On the optimization of regenerator parameters in a chain of 2R all-optical regenerators

The dependence of the bit-error ratio (BER) along a 2R all-optical regenerator chain on the nonlinearity threshold and degree is investigated numerically using the rigorous distribution and the Gaussian distribution for the optical power. It is shown that, for high nonlinearity degree, the optimum nonlinearity threshold has a weak dependence on the number of regenerators and, for low nonlinearity degree, increases with the number of regenerators. Numerical results show that the Gaussian distribution may under-estimate or over-estimate the BER and fails to indicate the optimum regenerator parameters