Effects of crosstalk propagation on the performance of All-Optical Networks

The performance of current transport networks is limited by the speed of electronic components and in particular by electronic switches. The new generation All-Optical Networks (AONs) provide a solution to this problem by switching the data entirely in optical domain. However these optical switches are prone to crosstalk. The crosstalk is a major source of signal impairments in All-Optical Networks. This paper studies the effects of crosstalk originated at intermediate nodes by optical switches in the presence of fiber nonlinearities and ASE. The performance of a 1000Km, 10 Gb/s crosstalk limited All-Optical Network is studied in terms of Q-factor. The optimization of input power and choice of modulation format are presented as the solution to counter the crosstalk impairment at transmission section layer.