Nonlinearity compensation using optical phase conjugation in optical fiber transmission systems

The fundamental performance limits of coherent optical transmission systems can be observed by a simple optimization between the linear noise and the nonlinear noise generated within the system. Optical Phase Conjugation (OPC) is considered to be one of the promising techniques to compensate for optical fiber’s dispersion and nonlinearity that cause crosstalk between signals traveling through long-haul optical transmission systems, nonlinearity compensation can lead to significant information capacity and distance reach expansion of optical fiber transmission links. To get the full benefit from the deployment of OPC in optical transmission systems, a few considerations must be taken into account, such as: power profile symmetry, fiber’s dispersion slope and Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD). In this contribution, we will present our simplified theoretical predictions of optical fiber transmission systems performance that deploy mid-link OPC and multiOPC and we will show that the introduction of multi-OPC in an optical transmission system will minimize the impact of uncompensated/nondeterministic signal-signal nonlinear interactions due to fiber’s PMD and signal-noise interactions. We will show wide range of simulation and experimental results that validate the theoretical predictions of system’s performance for various types of links: dispersion managed, dispersion unmanaged, discretely amplified systems and distributed Raman amplified systems. Also, we will present an extensive experimental study shows that the deployment of mid-link OPC can provide a significant reach improvement in asymmetric lumped optical fiber links when optimizing the span length.