WDM transmission considerations for submarine network applications

Important considerations in the optimisation of the performance of multi-wavelength transmission are the design of equalising gain shaping filters to overcome concatenated amplifier bandwidth, and polarisation scrambling to overcome polarisation penalties. Experiments conducted on a recirculating loop enabled analysis of the above effects. Analysis of the impact of the amplifier gain profile on the Q factor penalty is presented. Additionally the effect of polarisation scrambling on mean Q factor and Q fluctuation penalty is studied.