Analysis of the effect of thermal chirp on interferometric homodyne and heterodyne crosstalk in optical communication systems employing directly Modulated DFB lasers

A closed-form expression is derived for the probability density function (pdf) of the beat noise created by homodyne and heterodyne interferometric crosstalk in optical communication systems employing directly modulated distributed feedback lasers at bit rates between 155 Mb/s and 2.5 Gb/s. Thermal chirp is shown to be the predominant chirp mechanism affecting homodyne-crosstalk-induced penalty at bit rates up to 2.5 Gb/s. Theoretical calculations of the crosstalk-induced power penalty are verified experimentally.