Compensation of cross-phase modulation in 10-Gbit/s WDM systems by interfering channel prechirp

Summary form only given. The use of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) and optical amplification as a method of increasing the information capacity and/or reach in optical fiber systems has led to significant propagation impairments as a result of fiber nonlinearity. Important nonlinear effects causing interchannel crosstalk in WDM systems are four-wave mixing (FWM) and cross phase modulation (XPM). FWM can be managed by increasing the system dispersion or by using unequal channel spacing. Neither of these approaches, however, decrease the system impairment due to XPM. We demonstrate a novel technique that can compensate XPM by prechirping the signal channel with a filtered version of an interfering WDM channel at the transmitter.