Impact of mode coupling on the mode-dependent loss tolerance in few-mode fiber transmission
Lobato, A.
; Ferreira, F. M.
; Kuschnerov, M.
; van den Borne, D. B.
; Jansen, S. L.
Optics Express Vol. 20, Nº 28, pp. 29776 - 29783, December, 2012.
ISSN (print):
ISSN (online): 1094-4087
Scimago Journal Ranking: 2,56 (in 2012)
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1364/OE.20.029776
Abstract
Spatial-division multiplexing in the form of few-mode fibers has captured the attention of researchers since it is an attractive approach to significantly increase the channel capacity. However, the optical components employed in such systems introduce mode-dependent loss or gain (MDL) due to manufacturing imperfections, leading to significant system impairments. In this work the impact of MDL from optical amplifiers in few-mode fibers with either weak or strong mode coupling is analyzed for a 3x136-Gbit/s DP-QPSK mode-division multiplexed transmission system. It is shown that strong mode coupling reduces the impact of MDL in a similar manner as that polarization-dependent loss is reduced in single mode fibers by polarization-mode dispersion.
