Performance degradation of source matching in optical CDMA due to source coherence effects

In this paper we study the performance of source matching technique for an optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) system in the presence of source coherence effects and square law detection process. We use a binary-asymmetric channel (BAC) model for an OCDMA system employing an all-optical passive correlator receiver. Source coherence effects lead to relative-intensity-noise (RIN) and phase-induced-intensity-noise (PIIN), which are included in our analysis. Previous studies only considered multiple access interference (MAI) noise, resulting in a Z-channel (where errors only occur for the transmission of data bit zero) model, and neglected RIN and PIIN. The presence of RIN and PIIN leads to errors occurring for both transmitted data bits one and zero, thus a BAC model. We show that source matching gain depends on the normalized source coherence time, defined as the ratio of the optical source coherence time to the bit duration. Our analysis shows that, while MAI limited analysis predicts that increasing the number of users increases the source matching gain, when taking into account RIN and PIIN, source matching gain is both bit rate and source type dependent, and tends to zero for very high numbers of users.