Efficient compensation of inter-channel nonlinear effects via digital backward propagation in WDM optical transmission

Abstract

An advanced split-step method is employed for the digital backward-propagation (DBP) method using the coupled nonlinear Schrodinger equations for the compensation of inter-channel nonlinearities. Compared to the conventional DBP, cross-phase modulation (XPM) can be efficiently compensated by including the effect of the inter-channel walk-off in the nonlinear step of the split-step method (SSM). While self-phase modulation (SPM) compensation is inefficient in WDM systems, XPM compensation is able to increase the transmission reach by a factor of 2.5 for 16-QAM-modulated signals. The advanced SSM significantly relaxes the step size requirements resulting in a factor of 4 reduction in computational load.