Towards Zero-Crosstalk-Margin Operation of Spectrally-Spatially Flexible Optical Networks using Heterogeneous Multicore Fibers

In spectrally-spatially flexible optical network (SS-FON), crosstalk (XT)-margin overprovisioning is unavoidable due to transmission reach granularity of modulation schemes. We show that heterogeneous multicore fibers of specific core designs can achieve zero-XT-margin. We also propose a core-type selection method to minimize XT-margin in SS-FONs.