Compensation for fiber-induced composite second-order distortion in externally modulated lightwave AM-SCM systems using optical-phase conjugation

Compensation for composite second-order (CSO) distortion due to the interplay of fiber chromatic dispersion and self-phase modulation in externally modulated amplitude modulated subcarrier multiplexing (AM-SCM) systems employing optical-phase conjugation (OPC) is investigated. The simulation results show that significant reductions (>20 dB) of fiber-induced CSO may be achieved using OPC, which results in an increase of the transmission distance in AM-SCM video distribution systems operating near 1550 nm. In addition, a comparison with another compensation technique, the phase modulation technique, is established, showing that OPC is much less sensitive to variations in the fiber length. However it is also calculated that for practical implementation of the OPC-based compensation technique, 25 to 30 dB reduction in the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) associated with the OPC will be required.