Crosstalk and its power penalty in multichannel transmission due to gain saturation in a semiconductor laser amplifier

A theoretical study of channel crosstalk due to gain saturation in a laser amplifier in multichannel transmission is discussed. When the amplifier is gain-saturated, the gain of any channel is influenced by the light intensity of the other channels, which causes channel crosstalk in intensity-modulated multiplexing transmission. On-off-keying modulation systems with more than two channels are discussed. Considering the probability distribution, the power penalty due to crosstalk is presented for practical system design. Calculated examples reveal that the power penalty is dependent on both the level of gain saturation and the number of multiplexed channels.<
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