A Dynamic Spectrum Allocation Scheme to limit the FWM Effects in Elastic Optical Networks

Nonlinear impairments especially Four-Wave Mixing (FWM) affect the overall optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) by introducing additional crosstalks into the system. FWM is a fiber nonlinearity, in which the interaction of three frequencies generates a fourth frequency known as the FWM component that produces crosstalk with the channel frequencies having the same frequencies as the generated ones. The impact of FWM crosstalk is severe in the case of Elastic Optical Networks (EONs) because a considerable amount of FWM crosstalk is created by inter and intra-channel interferences due to the small channel spacings. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the FWM crosstalk effect in EONs to improve the OSNR for the established optical connections. The relevant research works on this field take into account the overall nonlinear effect on EONs; however, depreciation of FWM components in EONs is not considered explicitly. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a unique approach to suppress the FWM crosstalk, which we understand, has not been considered for EONs till now. The simulation results show that the number of FWM components has been reduced significantly using the proposed approach.