Impact of Perturbations on Nonlinear Frequency-Division Multiplexing

• Published in: Journal of lightwave technology Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 485 - 494
• Main Authors: Yangzhang, Xianhe, Lavery, Domanic, Bayvel, Polina, Yousefi, Mansoor I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 15-01-2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Atmospheric modeling; Back propagation; Bandwidth; Compensation; Dual polarization (waves); Fiber optic communications; Focusing; Frequency division multiplexing; Nonlinear Fourier transform; nonlinear frequency-division multiplexing; optical fiber communication; Perturbation methods; Polarization; Wave division multiplexing; Wavelength division multiplexing
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2018.2798412

Nonlinear frequency-division multiplexing (NFDM) is a communication scheme in which users' signals are multiplexed in the nonlinear Fourier domain. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, the achievable information rates (AIRs) of NFDM based on an integrable model of the optical fiber are summarized. For this ideal model, it is shown that the AIR of the NFDM is greater than the AIR of the wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) for a given bandwidth and signal power, in a representative system with five users and one symbol per user. The improvement results from nonlinear signal multiplexing. Second, the impact of some of the main perturbations on NFDM are investigated, including the fiber loss, polarization effects, and the third-order dispersion. For a realistic nonideal model, it is shown that the WDM AIR with joint dual-polarization back-propagation and third-order dispersion compensation is approximately equal to the NFDM AIR with two independent single-polarization demodulations and without third-order dispersion compensation. Using a joint dual-polarization receiver and perturbations compensation is expected to increase the NFDM AIR.