Investigation of the dependence of non-linear interference on the number of WDM channels in coherent optical networks

Abstract

We experimentally investigate nonlinearity impact in a multi-span uncompensated coherent optical system, transmitting, in the 50GHz grid, N_ch×100G CP-DQPSK channels, varying N_ch from 3 to 71. A good agreement was found with an analytical model, confirming the progressive growth of interference with N_ch. Impacts on network design are evaluated.