Interferometric Noise Characterisation of a 2-D Time Spreading Wavelength Hopping OCDMA Networks using FBG Encoding/Decoding

The results of a range of experimental characterization exercises of interferometric noise (IN) for the case of a representative 2-D time spreading wavelength-hopping (2-D TW) optical code family are presented. Interferometric noise is evaluated at a data rate of 2.5 Gbps within an OCDMA network emulation test bed established utilising fibre Bragg grating encoders/decoders. The results demonstrate that this form of noise introduces significant system power penalties and must be taken into consideration in any OCDMA network designs and implementations.