Fiber Optic Intermodulation Distortion

In analog frequency-division multiplexed fiber optic systems, laser nonlinearities transfer energy between the different carriers, resulting in intermodulation distortion and interference. A third-order polynomial without memory is used to model the nonlinearity. The FM frequency-division multiplexed (FM/FDM) signal consists of a set of FM carriers at frequencies. , where . The video distortion introduced by the nonlinearity is determined for various types of second- and third-order intermodulation terms. The intermodulation distortion frequency spectrum is determined for FM signals with assumed Gaussian spectra.