Impact of Four Wave Mixing and Accumulated ASE on the Performance of a Metropolitan Optical Network

Performance analysis of an all-optical multiwavelength Metropolitan Optical Network (MON) is presented. Simulation results of the bit error rate (BER) performance are shown taking into considerations the combined influence of photo detector shot noise, beat noise components arising out of the beating of the signal with accumulated amplifier´s spontaneous emission (ASE) and crosstalk introduced at each node due to four wave mixing. The performance results evaluated at a bit rate of 10 Gbit/s show that for maintaining BER of 10¿9, the maximum number of achievable nodes for hop length of 5km is approximately 150 at ¿ 10 dBm. The minimum required power and maximum allowable power for maintaining BER of 10¿9, can be found from BER vs received power curves for different number of hops. Transmitted/received power should be kept between these two power levels. As the number of hops is increased, this margin is reduced.