Analysis of interactions between node induced crosstalk and fiber nonlinearities in optical metropolitan area networks

The problems that occur at the nodes of a metropolitan area network (MAN) can interact with optical fiber nonlinearities. In this paper, impacts of such interactions, in particular the one between crosstalks occurring at the optical add/drop multiplexers (OADMs) of metropolitan network nodes and optical fiber nonlinearities, on transmission performances of optical fiber systems are investigated. The optical fiber systems are a non-zero dispersion shifted fiber (NZDF) system and a standard single mode fiber (SMF) system where dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) is used for dispersion management, shortly a SMF+DCF system. Significant impairments on transmission performances are observed in simulations. The results show that such interactions should be carefully considered during the design of metropolitan WDM networks.