Mitigation ofFWM Crosstalk in WDM System

Using Polarization Interleaving Technique

Haider. J. Abdl, N.M. Dinl, M. H. AI-Mansoori2, F. Abdullahl and H. A. Fadhie

Abstract-In
transmission

Centre for Communications Service Convergence Technologies, College of Engineering,

UniversitiTenaga Nasional, lalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000 Kajang, Malaysia
2
Faculty of Engineering, Sohar University, PO Box 44, pcr 311, Sohar, Oman
3
School of Computer Engineering, University Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia
E-mail: haiderlaser@yahoo.com

long-haul

characteristics

transmission
are

systems,

degraded

by

mixing (FWM) generated in optical fibers. This paper presents

a new approach to reduce the four wave mixing crosstalk

based on polarization interleaving is presented. The FWM

behavior and the performance of WDM systems were analyzed
using the proposed technique. The simulation was performed
using different power values with 100 GHz channel spacing,

and at a data rate of 60Gb\s. It was found that the FWM

power

was

drastically

reduced

to

-64

dBm

II.

optical

four-wave

when

the

polarization technique was used. In addition, the WDM system

performance showed that at the sixth channel (192 THz), the
21
a BER
of 4.86x10- , in
approach incurred

suggested

comparison with the absence of the approach where the BER

10
was 4.3x10at the same received power. The results prove
that the proposed system is superior in mitigating FWM
crosstalk.

Index Terms-four wave mixing (FWM), polarization

interleaving, WDM system

PROPOSED SYSTEM SIMULATION DESIGN AND

THEORETICAL M ODEL

Figure 1 describes the proposed system configuration of

the transmitter and receiver. The laser source is an array of
CW laser sources, which emits a number of individual
carriers that are separated by 100 GHz channel spacing.
They are connected to an external modulator, which is
connected to a pulse generator to modulate the optical
signals using the Return-Zero (RZ) modulation format. The
output of this is fed to the Mach-Zehnder modulator
(MZM). A polarization-interleaving scheme is used in the
designing of the WDM system to decrease the FWM
nonlinear effects and improve the capacity of the WDM
system. In the polarization interleaving (PI) system, the
total channels (N) are divided into odd and even channels
and then multiplexed separately.Both odd and even
channels go through different polarizations state before
interleaving. Six channels (N
6) were used in the
simulated system. The channels, designated as n], n2, n3, 14,
n5, Il(j are split into odd (n], n3, n5) and even channels (n2' 14,
Il(j). The odd numbered channels are fed into a multiplexer
and the even numbered channels are fed into another
multiplexer. The outputs of the two multiplexers are fed
into a polarization controller (PC). The polarization
controller is a device used to change the state of
polarization (SOP) of the input signal by changing the
azimuth and ellepticity parameters. The SOP of the odd
numbered channels is made of O while for even numbered
channels are 90 making each channel adjacently
orthogonal.Then the polarized signals from the two
multiplexers pass together through the final multiplexer. In
conventional system, the SOP of the all signals is aligned
on O .The optical link consists of seven spans and each one
includes post dispersion compensations, with two erbium
doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) between them with a noise
value of 4 dB and gain of 14 and 7 dB, respectively. The
optical spectrum is located after the second amplifier
(EDFA) to measure the FWM power. After the propagation
of the signal in the optical fiber channel, it is then received
and detected at the receiver. The received signal is split by a
polarization splitter (PS) into odd and even numbered
channels.Then the demultiplexers divided the channels apart
before it is detected by a photodiode (PIN) and then passed
through the low-pass Bessel filter. Finally, the signal is then
connected to the eye diagram tester, which is used to
configure the graph. The overall system parameters are
summarized below in Table (I).
=

I.

INTRODUCTION

In order to meet the ever increasing demand on the

bandwidth and improve the spectral efficiency, more
channels are being added to the optical fiber by reducing the
spaces between channels and increasing the data rate of a
single channel. However, both of these factors lead to the
increase of crosstalk in the system.
According to recent studies, fiber nonlinearities and
dispersion are the main significant factors that obstruct long
transmission distances and limit the optical communication
systems bandwidth. The FWM causes the most detrimental
effects in WDM and DWDM optical communication
systems [1-2]. Recently, a few FWM reduction techniques
such as wavelength-swept WDM access system [3],
effective frequency and polarization allocations [4], and
hybrid wavelengthitime-division-multiplexingWDMlTDM)
technique [5] and non-uniform channel spacing [6] have
been reviewed. However, these techniques either requiring
compensation of dispersion in place or it needs design a
complex system. Furthermore, some of them may reduce
the FWM effect but at the expense of WDM capacity.
Therefore, a new approach for suppressing FWM is
required to widen the transmission capacity with simple
system design. In this paper, we propose a new FWM
reduction technique by utilizing polarization interleaving.

117

978-1-4673-6075-3/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

l'ol.ru.Uoa
Splitt ....

(b)
Fig. 1. Proposed optical WDM system configuration (a) transmitter and (b) receiver

Table I. parameters of system simulation

Parameter

Unit

Values

Fiber length, L
Input power, Pi
Input frequency

Km
dBm
THz
GHz
ps/nrn.
km

490 for SMF and 98 for DCF

5
191.5 to 192
100
17 for SMF and -85 for DCF

Cross effective area, Aeff

!IDl2

70 for SMF and 22 for DCF

Third order Susceptibility,

Xli 10
Refractive index, n

mJ/w.s

6x10-15

Attenuation factor,

(dB/

0.2 for SMF and 0.5 for DCF

NW

0.8

Channel spacing, M
Dispersion, Dc

Degeneracy factor, Dg

1.48

km)

Number of channel

K, detector responsivity

III.

SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The effect of the polarization interleaving technique on

the WDM performance with regard to FWM was studied.
The system evaluation was conducted by increasing the
input power from -12 to 0 dBm. From Figure 2, the results
show that the FWM power increased when the input power
increased in both cases of using the proposed polarization
interleaving technique and when not using it, i.e. the
conventional way. However, the reduction in FWM power
in proposed technique is higher than the conventional one at
all points in time.At -12 dBm input power, with the
polarization technique, the FWM Power was -88dBm.
However, it was -80 dBm at the same input power in the
absence of using the technique. Likewise from Figure 3(a-b),
in the existence of proposed technique, the behavior of
FWM introduces a significant reduction in the numbers of
FWM and FWM power. The FWM power decreased to less
than -64 dBm at OdBm input power in the presence of the
Polarization approach, while it was -54 dBm without using
the approach at same input power value.

Figure 4(a-d) depict the relationship between the received

power and BER when applied the proposed technique for
channels 1 , 3,4 and 6. Under the influence of PI, the BERs
in most the channels are improved compared to BERs when
the polarization was not used.Without the polarization
technique, the BERs values at channels 1 , 3, 4 and 6 were
14
13
13
1
8.59x1 O, ,5. 1 2x1 0' ,8.4 1 x10, and 4.3x1 0- , respectively,
at a received power of -9.59dBm. In the case of using the PI
technique, the system performance offers lower values of
16
16
15
BERs, i.e., 4.21 x 10, , 3.79x 10, , 2.51 xl 0- and 4.86x I 0'
21,
at same channels respectively with the same received
power. The BER values has better in ch6 than other
channels. The reason behind that the FWM crosstalk on this
channel drain more power from it, so when the PI is applied
the FWM crosstalk will be reduced and the the average
power of the main channel will be increased, and thus
increase the received power on the receiver and the BER
will improve. For chI, at low values of received power the
BER seems high in available of PI than in conventional
system. When the received power increase (-15.46 dBm and
more) duet increase the input power(-4 dBm and more), the
BER begin enhanced as the FWM crosstalk on channel will
be reduced .

118

(a)

2------'--

191.3 T

Poww(dBm)

191.9T
191.6T
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 2. FWM power versus input power with and without the polarization

192.2T

(b)

technique.

----.-Conventional System eM
_Propsed System eM

<
,,

,,'

(a)

,,'
"
w
m

10

10

10

. ,0

. ,2

191 T

\-4

1 0.

'&

"

20

-18

-14
-16
RecehEd PCIWef (dBm)

192 T
Frequency (H:z)

193 T

Fig.3. Optical spectrum comparison after 588 Ian for system (a) without

"

polarization technique (b) with polarization technique, both at input power

OdBm

,,'

,,

<

(b)

,,'

IV.

CONCLUSION

,,'

We have shown through simulations an efficient solution to

reduce the FWM effect using polarization interleaving. It
was found that the FWM power is reduced to -64 dBm using
this approach in compared to the conventional system.
Furthermore, the proposed method ensured BER
enhancement in the range of 4.8 x 10-21 after 588 km of
transmission.

10.,

10'

10"

10-

-16

-14

Recei'.ed PoNer (dBm)

,,'

,,

<

______ Col1Y8ntional System eh4

-Propsed System eh4

,,'

(c)

,,'

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank the Ministry of Higher Education
Malaysia for funding this project under the Exploratory Research
Grant

10'

EERGS/l/20 13/STG02IUNITEN/02/0 I.
REFERENCES

10'2
10"

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10-1
Receiwd Power (dem)

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10L-.,,,.----'
,
RecIlMldPower(dBm)

Fig 4. Received power versus BER in the presence and absence of

polarization technique of (a) chl,(b)ch3,(c)ch4 and (d) ch6

[4]

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119