One bit/s/Hz Spectrally Efficient Transmission for an Eight-Channel NRZ-Modulated DWDM System

Abstract

The core of the global telecommunication network consists of wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical transmission systems. WDM is the technology of choice as it allows for a high spectral efficiency. We propose an effective way to counter the nonlinearities like four-wave mixing and cross-phase modulation to achieve the spectral efficiency of 1 bit/s/Hz using non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation format. We use the concept of non-uniform channel spacing and non-uniform power assignment between adjacent channels of the WDM system. We have simulated an eight-channel WDM lightwave system with bit rates of 10 and 25 Gbit/s.