1

Compensation of Nonlinear Effects Using Digital Coherent

Receivers
Guifang Li, Eduardo Mateo and Likai Zhu

CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida; 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando FL, 32816 (USA).

Abstract: Nonlinearity compensation in digital coherent receivers is feasible from a fundamental point of
view. This paper shows that it is possible to reduce the computational load required for nonlinearity
compensation to practical level.

2011 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (060.1660) Coherent communications; (060.2330) Fiber optics communications.
1. Introduction
In the last few years, research in high-capacity transmission has shifted to coherent detection. Advances in
digital signal processing (DSP) have enabled phase and polarization management required for coherent detection in
the electrical domain. Moreover, coherent detection in conjunction with DSP enables compensation of fiber-optic
transmission impairment, opening up new possibilities that will likely shape the future of optical transmission
technology. Recently, digital backward propagation (DBP) has been proposed for the compensation of fiber
impairments [1, 2]. The implementation of DBP consists on solving the z-reversed propagation equations that
describe nonlinear transmission in fibers in the digital domain. Provided that the channel characteristics are known,
any deterministic effect can be pre/post-compensated at the transmitter/receiver. The joint compensation of
dispersion and nonlinearity allows significant increase in launch power to values beyond the traditional nonlinear
limit. As a result, higher OSNR and thus higher spectral efficiency and/or longer transmission reach can be
achieved. Despite its proven efficacy in both improving performance and extending reach, DBP is still challenging
in terms of DSP complexity. This paper shows how to reduce the computational load for DBP in a systematic
manner.
2. Digital Backward Propagation
Digital backward propagation is based on solving the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE):

( )
1 1

E
N D A
z

c
= +
c
, (1)
where
1

and
1

are inverse nonlinear and differential operators, respectively, and given by:

2
1 '

N i E

= ,
' ' 2 3 '
1 3 2
2 3

2 6 2
i
D
t t
| | o

c c
= +
c c

(2)
where
'
,
'
2
| ,
'
3
| and
'
o are fiber nonlinear coefficient, first- and second-order group velocity dispersion, and loss
coefficient. The input to the z-reversed NLSE is the received optical signal and the output is the impairment-
compensated data. For wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) transmission, the received signal is given by

= exp[i ]
m m
m m
E E E m t e = A

(3)
where
m
E

be the envelope of the optical field for the m th-channel and C is the total number of WDM
channels. t e/2 = A Af is the channel spacing. The NLSE is most commonly solved using the split-step Fourier
method (SSFM). In this approach, each span of fiber is divided into N sections and
1

and
1

are implemented
sequentially. Two fundamental parameters determine the computational requirements for solving the NLSE namely
sampling rate and the SSFM step size.
3. Reducing Computational Load for DBP

The SSFM accuracy depends fundamentally on the mutual influence of dispersion and nonlinearity within the step
length [3,4]. Due to the nature of the dispersion and nonlinearity operators, the step size has to be chosen such that
(1) the nonlinear phase shift is small enough to preserve the accuracy of the dispersion operation and (2) the optical
power fluctuations due to dispersion effects are small enough to preserve the accuracy of the nonlinear operation.
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Optical Society of America


2
One way to set the upper bound for the step size is to identify the characteristic physical lengths, which correlate the
optical field fluctuations with the propagation distance. Three physical lengths are of interest here, namely, the
nonlinear length
nl
L , the walk-off length
wo
L and the four-wave mixing length
fwm
L . The nonlinear and walk-off
lengths can be defined, for a multi-channel system, as follows,

2
1 1
= , = ,
2 1
2 | | ( 1)
nl wo
T
L L
C
C fB
P
C
t |

A
(4)
where,
2
= | |
T m
m
P E

is the total launched power and again, B is the symbol rate (effectively the inverse of the
pulse width). The nonlinear length has been defined as the length after which an individual channel achieves a 1
radian phase shift due to SPM and XPM. The walk-off length is defined as the distance after which the relative delay
of pulses from the edge channels is equal to the pulse width. The above characteristic lengths are well known and
widely used to qualitatively describe the optical field behavior through fiber propagation. The FWM length is given
by [3]
2 2 2
2
1
= .
| | ( 1)
fwm
L
C f t | A
(5)
The above expression represents the length after which the argument of the fastest FWM term is shifted by 1 radian;
hence, it can be understood as the distance after which power fluctuations due to FWM start to take place. In
general, the FWM length is shorter than the XPM walk-off lengh, which in turn is shorter than the dispersion length.

Regarding sampling rate, each detected channel has to be up-sampled so that the bandwidth of the reconstructed
full-optical field is wide enough to avoid aliasing of newly generated FWM products. Specifically, the sampling rate
for each symbol for using NLSE is
2 /
NLSE
S C f B = A (6)
The above formula forces the sampled bandwidth to be twice the total optical bandwidth.

Base on the fundamental understanding above, we present the following systematic approaches to reducing
computational load:
- Since intrachannel nonlinearity is automatically corrected using DBP and XPM is the dominating nonlinear
effect in optical transmission, coupled NLSEs, in which FWM contributions are neglected, should be used.
This reduces the computational load in two ways. First, the sampling rate can now be set at two samples per
bit for each channel. Second, the SSFM step size is now set at the walk-off length.
- Since the dispersion length is usually larger than the walk-off length, the waveform of the interacting
channels remain almost contant within the walk-off length. By taking into account the group delay
appropriately, the SSFM step size can be increased to the dispersion length.
Conclusions
Following the above recipe, we will show that the computational load for DBP can be reduced to within a
factor less than two orders of magnitude of that required for dispersion compensation. Since commercial coherent
receivers already implement not only dispersion compensation but also phase estimation, polarization
demultiplexing and PMD compensation, any additional improvements in DBP algorithm will bring digital
nonlinearity compensation closer to reality.
References
[1] X. Li et al., Opt. Express, 16, 880 (2008).
[2] E. Ip et al, J. Lightw. Technol., 2008, pp.34163425
[3] E. Mateo et al, Applied Eng., 2009, pp.F6-F10
[4] E. Mateo et al, Optics Express 2010, pp. 15144-15154
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