Role of Q-factor and of time jitter in the performance evaluation of optically amplified transmission systems

The role of Q-factor and of time jitter in the evaluation of the system performance has been investigated for return-to-zero (RZ) optically amplified links. We show that, also if the decision variable is not Gaussian, it is possible to predict, by means of a limited number of simulations, the conditions in which the bit-error rate (BER) is lower than a fixed value (10/sup -9/), if both the Q-factor and the time jitter are evaluated including patterning effects. This analysis has been confirmed by the comparison among simulations and some experimental results, obtained in the framework of ESTHER and UPGRADE ACTS European projects, in very different propagation conditions.