Influence of Kerr-effect on long-span optical transmission

In optically-amplified systems the propagated signal will accumulate dispersive and non-linear effects along the full length of the fibre. The optical Kerr effect is of particular importance and can lead to significant levels of self-phase and cross-phase modulation which interact with the chromatic dispersion. This paper describes a computer model which simulates the propagation of data signals along such a system and predicts the received signal shape, together with a corresponding penalty figure. The model is capable of simulating a variety of signal formats, and results are presented for some of these