Impact of crosstalk in an arrayed-waveguide multiplexer on N×N optical interconnection

Abstract

The impact of crosstalk in an arrayed-waveguide N/spl times/N wavelength multiplexer is investigated precisely in relation to its application to wavelength-routing N/spl times/N all optical networks. In such systems multiple crosstalk light which has the same wavelength as the signal results in signal-crosstalk beat noise. We confirm that the noise is Gaussian and obtain the relation between crosstalk and power penalty. It is shown that the crosstalk must be less than -38 dB for a 16/spl times/16 system to keep the power penalty below 1 dB at a bit error rate of 10/sup -9/.