Effects of the fiber chromatic dispersion on the performances of an O-CDMA scheme for high-speed access networks

Optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) appears as an attractive alternative for optical access networks, thanks to spreading. However, this system uses ultra-short light pulses that are sensible to the optical link parameters, especially the fiber chromatic dispersion. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the fiber chromatic dispersion together with multiple access interference (MAI) in a direct sequence OCDMA network. An efficient simulation method is developed in order to realize a parametric study of the performances as a function of the optical fiber length, the spreading code parameters, the data rate and the number of users.