Effect of the power of the CW input signal to an electroabsorption modulator on system performance

To accurately assess the performance of 10 Gb/s transmission systems that use electroabsorption modulators and non-dispersion shifted optical fiber, particular attention must be given to the modulator chirp, optical extinction ratio and average transmitted optical power. The chirp and optical extinction ratio of an electroabsorption modulator depend on the power of the CW input signal. In this paper, the implications of this dependency on 10 Gb/s transmission performance are considered. To include the distinct properties of an electroabsorption modulator in a system simulator, a model based on the measured voltage dependence of the a-parameter and absorption is used.