A generalized suboptimum unequally spaced channel allocation technique. II. In coherent WDM systems

For pt.I see ibid., vol.46, no.8, p.1027-37 (1998). Four-wave mixing (FWM) in dispersion-shifted optical fiber is a major problem associated with low optical input power levels in optical wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) systems. To reduce the crosstalk caused by FWM, a generalized suboptimum unequally spaced channel allocation (S-BISCA) technique has been proposed. While the S-USCA technique reduces the PWM power substantially, it also reduces the minimum channel spacing compared to conventional equal channel spacing (ECS) systems when the same number of carrier channels are accommodated in a fixed optical bandwidth. This results in more interchannel interference (ICI) when employing the S-USCA scheme. The power penalty of the ECS and the S-USCA systems caused by crosstalk and frequency drift are investigated and compared in this paper. The superior system performance region, where S-USCA systems out perform ECS systems, is also quantified. For 20-channel systems using an amplitude-shift keying (ASK) heterodyne detection scheme, for instance, results show that the S-USCA technique pays less power penalty up to bit rates of 5.5, 7.5, and 9.5 Gb/s, when all channels have identical states of polarization and the launched input power per channel P/sub in/, equals to -6, -3, and 0 dBm, respectively.