On the performance of multichannel digital backpropagation in high-capacity long-haul optical transmission

The performance of digital backpropagation (DBP) equalization when applied over multiple channels to compensate for the nonlinear impairments in optical fiber transmission systems is investigated. The impact of a suboptimal multichannel DBP operation is evaluated, where implementation complexity is reduced by varying parameters such as the number of nonlinear steps per span and sampling rate. Results have been obtained for a reference system consisting of a 5 x 32 Gbaud PDM-16QAM superchannel with 33 GHz subchannel spacing and Nyquist pulse shaping under long-haul transmission. The reduction in the effectiveness of the algorithm is evaluated and compared with the ideal gain expected from the cancellation of the nonlinear signal distortion. The detrimental effects of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) with varying DBP bandwidth are also studied. Key parameters which ensure the effectiveness of multichannel DBP are identified. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America.