Transmission performance of a 400 Gbit s-1 all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system

The performance of a 400 Gbit s(-1) all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AO-OFDM) transmission system is researched with the effects of chromatic dispersion, fiber nonlinearities and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise. The numerical simulation results show that the AO-OFDM system can provide a higher spectral efficiency (SE) and a better sensitivity than a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system. The accumulated dispersion tolerance of the system reaches 330 ps nm(-1). When transmitted over single-span 80 km single-mode fiber (SMF), AO-OFDM signals have a 1.5 dB power penalty at BER = 10(-3) due to the fiber Kerr nonlinearities, and the receiver sensitivity of the AO-OFDM system is obviously degraded with increasing incident optical power. In multispan transmission, the interaction of the fiber Kerr nonlinearity with the ASE noise is analyzed. A 1320 km maximum transmission distance is realized at 0 dBm incident optical power. The transmission discount due to the ASE noise and fiber nonlinearities in the AO-OFDM system is calculated. Fiber Kerr nonlinearities impose a greater limitation on the performance of the AO-OFDM system for long-distance transmission. All results clearly indicate the feasibility of AO-OFDM technology for next generation 400 Gbit s(-1) fiber communication and multiservice networks.