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1

Channel Capacity of Optical Fiber Communications




TABLE OF CONTENTS



1 Introduction.................................................................................................3
2 Channel Capacity ...............................4
2.1 Linear Regime with coherent detection......................5
2.2 Linear Regime with constant intensity and coherent detection........6
2.3 Linear Regime with direct detection...................................7
3 Nonlinear Regime ................................8
4 Dispersion limitations on 2-DPSK and 4-DPSK systems............14
5 BER and SER for some modulation schemes............................18
5.1 Relationship between Symbol Error Rate and Bit Error Rate.23
6 OSNR measurements in a WDM system..................................................26
6.1 Receiver Sensitivity Penalty (RSP).28
6.2 Eye Opening Penalty (EOP).30
7 References................................................................................................33













2





Introduction

Channel capacity can be calculated theoretically without considering any specific
modulation scheme. The theoretical capacity does not generally tell us which
specific modulation technique we should use in order to achieve the capacity. In
wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems the spectral efficiency limit is
obtained from the relation between the capacity per channel and the channel
spacing. The spectral efficiency depends on

- The modulation technique used: unconstrained, constant intensity and
binary.
- Detection technique: coherent and direct.
- Propagation regime: linear (without fiber nonlinearities) and nonlinear.

There are two regimes where the spectral efficiency can be obtained analytically.
The first one does not consider chromatic dispersion or shelf-phase modulation,
cross-phase modulation, four-wave mixing, polarization mode dispersion; it is
called the linear regime. The nonlinear regime considers all these effects.








3





Channel Capacity

The spectral efficiency is expressed as a relation and is written as

f
C
C
A
=
max
(15)

where C is the capacity per channel and f A is the maximum bandwidth if a
channel, i.e., the channel spacing.

The capacity is principally determined by the bandwidth and the encoding
technique. The bandwidth in the optical fiber is limited by the intrinsic loss of light
propagating through silica. The maximum bandwidth is considered to be 50 THz
(1.2 m 1.6 m), because of the spacing of standard frequency grids.
Actually, the optical communication systems have a bandwidth limited to about
15 THz.

Now, the question is how the nonlinearities affect the spectral efficiency of the
fiber? So we proceed to study the principal nonlinearities in the fiber and their
effects on spectral efficiency.

Now, the injected ASE noise at the output of the final amplifier has a power
spectral density given by

hv n G N S
sp A eq
) 1 ( = (16)
4
where
A
N the number of fiber spans, G is the amplifier gain,
sp
n is the
spontaneous emission noise factor of one amplifier, h is Plancks constant and v
is the optical frequency. The ASE has a total power given by

hvB n G N P
sp A n
) 1 ( = (17)

where B is the bandwidth and
in
P is the input power.


Linear Regime with coherent detection

The classic theory of information developed by Shannon sets limits on the
efficiency of communication channel. The capacity of a communication channel
is the maximal rate at which information can be transferred through the channel
without error. It takes into account noise and limited power and the signal is
modeled as a complex-valued electric field. The capacity can be written as

|
.
|

\
|
+ =
N
S
W C 1 log
2
(18)

where W is the spectral bandwidth,
n
t
P
P
N
S
SNR = = is the signal power to noise
power ratio. This equation considers a channel with AWGN (additive white
Gaussian noise) with a limited power. The noise (N) is a contribution of ASE
(amplified spontaneous emission) in the system. We assumed that ASE noise is
the principal noise source.


The spectral efficiency limit which we denote
max
C can be written as

5

|
.
|

\
|
+
|
|
.
|

\
|
A
=
N
S
f
B
C 1 log
2 max
(19)


Linear Regime with constant intensity and coherent detection

Some modulations techniques as differential phase shift keying (DPSK) encode
the data using a constant intensity. The receiver recovers the information using
an interferometric detector. The capacity with coherent detection and constant
intensity modulation was developed by J. M. Khan and K. P. Ho. The optimal
transmitted electric field is uniformly distributed on a circle. The capacity at
arbitrary SNR can be written as

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
}

0
2 2
2 log ) ( log ) ( 2
n
eP dr r f r rf B C t t (20)

where

|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
+

=
n
s
n
s
P
P r
I
P
r P
n
e
P
r f
0
2
2
2
1
) (
t
(21)


At high SNR, the capacity can be a approximated to

|
|
.
|

\
|
+
|
|
.
|

\
|
~ 10 . 1 log
2
1
2
n
t
P
P
B C (22)

The spectral efficiency is

6
|
|
.
|

\
|
+
|
|
.
|

\
|
A
= 10 . 1 log
2
1
2 max
n
t
P
P
f
B
C (23)

This equation has 1.1 b/s/Hz more than half the Shannon limit.







Linear Regime with direct detection

Mecozzi and Shtaif developed the channel capacity in the case of direct
detection considering the high SNR limit. To date, spectral efficiency limits have
not been derived for arbitrary SNR. In this case, the transmitted optical signal is
modeled as a non-negative, real electric field magnitude. The dominant noise is
signal-spontaneous beat noise, which is additive and dependent of the signal.

The capacity is given by

|
|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|
= 00 . 1 log
2
1
2
n
t
P
P
B C (24)

and the spectral efficiency is given by


|
|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|
A
= 0 . 1 log
2
1
2 max
n
t
P
P
f
B
C (25)

7
This limit is 1.0 b/s/Hz less than half the Shannon limit.


The figure 52 shows a comparison among the different spectral efficiencies in the
linear regime.


Figure 52: Spectral efficiency limits in a linear regime.


Nonlinear Regime

In typical DWDM systems, the dominant nonlinear impairments arise fro the Kerr
effect. The most important nonlinear effect is the refractive index,

I n n n
2 0
+ = (26)
8

where
0
n is the linear refractive index and
2
n is a constant.

Spectral efficiency limits in the nonlinear regime have been derived only for
coherent detection

If we consider cross-phase modulation (XPM) as the principal source of
nonlinearities in a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) system,
where each signal in the fiber perturbs the neighbor channels, then the nonlinear
power for XPM was found to be

eff
c
L
n
In
BD
I
|
.
|

\
|
A
=
2
2
2
0

(27)

where D is the dispersion, A is the distance between two channels, is the
fiber nonlinear coefficient,
c
n is the number of WDM channels,
o
A
eff
N
L ~ is the
effective length, o is the fiber attenuation coefficient.

The maximum spectral efficiency is lower-bounded by


|
|
|
|
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
+
+
A
=
|
|
.
|

\
|

|
|
.
|

\
|

I e P
I e
f
B
C
I
P
n
I
P
LB
t
t
2
0
0
1
1 log
2
2
(28)

9
This equation requires coherent optical detection, which requires a reference
signal with an identical or very close frequency to the transmitted signal and was
calculated by Mitra and Stark.

As an example, we consider a system with the following parameters:

20 =
c
n channels;
A
N =100 fiber spans;
o = 0.2 dB/Km;
o
A
eff
N
L ~ =100 Km;
D = 20 ps/nm/km; B f 5 . 1 = A
B = 10 GHz;

= 1
1 1
Km W , 0.1
1 1
Km W and 0 (without nonlinearities)

The following shows the figure for these 3 cases


Figure 53: Spectral efficiencies for several values of fiber nonlinear coefficient.
10

The figure shows that the spectral efficiency will decline after the system reach a
maximum capacity given by

|
|
.
|

\
|
~
t
c
P
I
B n C
0
2 max
2
log
3
2
(29)

so, the fiber spectral efficiency is limited by the noise in the optical amplifiers
(ASE) and the nonlinear properties of the fiber. Also the spectral efficiency limit
increases with chromatic dispersion and with channel spacing, because walk-off
decreases the impact of XPM.

The spectral efficiency calculated by Mecozzi in a linear regime using intensity
detection is roughly 1 b/s/Hz less than half that with coherent detection.

C calculated by Mitra and Stark in
a linear regime using coherent
detection
C calculated by Mitra and Stark in
a linear regime using coherent
detection
4 bit
1 1
Hz s 1 bit
1 1
Hz s
6 bit
1 1
Hz s 2 bit
1 1
Hz s

Many current DWDM systems use on-off keying (OOK) as a binary modulation
technique but the spectral efficiency can not exceed 1 bit/s/Hz ( 0.67 b/s/Hz in a
real system).

Mitra and Starks work suggest that the spectral efficiency limits would require a
non-binary encoding technique, such as a multilevel intensity or phase
modulation. It is known that a phase modulation can mitigate the XPM effect.

In conclusion:

11
- Systems with constant intensity modulation are less efficient (with respect
to spectral efficiency) that unconstrained modulation.
- Systems with direct detection have a significant loss of spectral efficiency.
- Systems with coherent detection is the best suited to approximate to the
limits the spectral efficiency.

It was shown that an increase of spectral efficiency to 0.8 bit/s/Hz in 40 Gb/s
based DWDM systems results in increased pulse distortions, because of the
reduced tolerance to implemented narrow-band filtering and larger impact of
multi-channel nonlinearities (particularly XPM). The differences between RZ- and
NRZ based modulation formats vanish in DWDM transmissions, because of the
distortion of RZ pulse shape due to narrow-band filtering needed at the
transmitter side.

It was shown that transmission performance of DWDM systems could profit from
implementation of transmission fibers with a large chromatic dispersion, due to
suppression of multi-channel effects independently of the modulation format in
use. Accordingly, already deployed fibers (e.g. G.652) can be further used in next
generation of DWDM transmission systems.

Furthermore, considering concatenation of identical spans in a DWDM
transmission line, it was observed that XPM-induced impacts superpose
constructively from span to span independently of the implemented dispersion
compensation scheme, resulting in an transmission penalty, which is in high
power regime proportional to number of concatenated spans. This behavior
enables together with already know transmission rules (e.g. Pmax) an efficient
estimation of the maximum transmission performance and maximum
transmission distance in 40 Gb/s DWDM systems.

In an overview of transmission experiments with channel data rates exceeding
2.5Gb/s (Figs. 1.4 and 1.5), two dominant trends can be observed in order to
12
meet the bandwidth demands. First, there is a trend for increasing the overall
system capacity. Summarizing the most important works with channel data rates
of 10, 40 and 160Gb/s regarding the achievable system capacity from the year
1994 up to now.



This tendency can be explained by a reduced complexity in realization and
availability of required 40Gb/s system components e.g. narrow-band filters on the
one hand, and compatibility of 40 Gb/s data rates with existing transmission
infrastructure on the other hand. The increased system capacity in 40Gb/s
experiments is enabled by implementation of some new sophisticated
technologies, e.g. novel modulation formats, new fiber and amplifier types, which
are becoming mature, because of the possibility to realize them using only
electronics or some hybride (electro-optics) solutions, which seems to be
impossible at increased channel data rates e.g. 160Gb/s, due to the fact that 40
Gb/s technology represents the limit for electronics.

Another network evolution trend, which is supported by the need for a better
utilization of the existing system bandwidth, is the enhancement of the systems
spectral efficiency. The achieved maximum efficiency values in 10Gb/s based
transmissions are not larger than 0.4 bit/s/Hz, which is primary caused by the fact
that narrow-band filters for ultra dense channel spacings (25 GHz or lower) are
not available at the moment. This fact lets the higher channel data rates appear
more convenient for achieving an increased spectral efficiency. Here again, the
40Gb/s based systems indicate the best choice characteristics, which can be
13
explained by the signal generation of 40Gb/s signals (compared to 160Gb/s) and
an easier realization of performance enabling technologies at 40Gb/s, thus
recommending the 40 Gb/s channel data rate as a candidate for the realization of
next generation
WDM and dense WDM (DWDM) optical transmission systems. At the same time,
the implementation of higher channel data rates larger than 10 Gb/s bears issues
e.g. reduced tolerance to fiber dispersion, to polarization mode dispersion (PMD)
and to noise disturbances in the transmission line, whose suppression requires
unconventional technologies and methods for achievement of improved
transmission characteristics, making the high bit rate based transmission
becoming a long term issue with long implementation times.


Dispersion limitations on 2-DPSK and 4-DPSK systems

A Great number of optical communication systems use binary OOK but actually
Metro communications services with high capacity show problems caused by
fiber impairments such as Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) and Chromatic
Dispersion (CD) arise the Inter symbol interference (ISI), in other words, produce
a signal distortion at the end of the receiver, degrading the Bit error rate (BER).

It has been proven that multilevel signaling modulation that narrow the optical
spectrum can reduce CD. Also multilevel signaling modulation increase the
symbol duration so more uncompensated CD and PMD can be allowed before
the ISI becomes significant.

Spectral efficiencies than exceed 1 bit/s/Hz are achievable in WDM systems.
However, the use of binary modulation, such as RZ and NRZ, limits the spectral
efficiency to a maximum of 1 b/s/Hz (realistic systems can afford less 1 b/s/Hz).
Systems that require approaching the spectral efficiency limit will require non
binary modulation schemes, such as QPSK (quaternary phase shift keying) and
14
QDPSK (quaternary differential phase shift keying); both of them are multilevel
phase modulation where the information is encoded in optical signals having
constant intensity.

A limitation in these non-binary modulation schemes is the additional OSNR
required to maintain the required BER.







BER and SER for some modulation shemes

The maximum possible data rate R=C is obtained from:

0 0
N
E
C N
S
b
=
(30)
Then the maximum possible data rate is given by

(

|
.
|

\
|
+ =
W
C
N
E
W
C
b
0
2
1 log
(31)
Thus the required SNR is obtained from

) 1 2 (
1 2
0
0
=
|
.
|

\
|
+ =
W
C
b
b W
C
C
W
N
E
W
C
N
E
(32)

15
where, C/W is the spectral efficiency in the modulated scheme.

About the question

"How does the bit error rate that you find from your simulations compare with the
Shannon limit?"

Answer: The Shannon limit serve as upper limits on the transmission rate for
reliable communication over a noisy channel. For example, for multilevel PSK
(MPSK), the spectral efficiency increases when M increases, but also at the cost
of required SNR (
o
b
N
E
), so there is a trade off in every modulation scheme. In
other words, in bandwidth limited systems, spectral efficiency modulation can be
used at the expense of power and in power limited systems; power efficient
modulation can be used at the expense of bandwidth.

If we want to know the power efficiency, then we need to know the BER of every
modulation scheme. Following are the BER (bit error rate) for binary modulation
schemes and SER (symbol error rate) for a multilevel modulation scheme also
the respective bandwidth efficiencies.

We assume that we have a set of M symbols to send:

) ( ),...... ( ), ( s ), (
3 2 1
t s t s t t s
m


each of which has a symbol duration of
s
T

These symbols are formed by modifying the amplitude, frequency or phase of the
carrier. The basic types of modulation are:

1.- Amplitude shift keying ASK
16
2.- Frequency shift keying FSK
3,- Phase shift keying PSK

For a binary modulation we have: BASK, BFSK, BPSK.

Another common modulation scheme includes 4 symbols, so we have: QASK,
QFSK and QPSK.

When we have a system with a number of symbols greater than 4 (M>4) is called
multilevel modulation so we have MASK, MFSK and MPSK.

In a binary system, we have only two symbols so there is no difference between
BER and SER. There is also no difference between Energy symbol
s
E and
Energy bit
b
E . The problem happened when we have M (M>2) symbols in the
system.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SYMBOL ERROR RATE AND BIT ERROR RATE

If there are M symbols in the system, then there are
2
log M bits encoded en each
symbol. The relation between the number of bits and symbols are:

k
M
M K
2
log
2
=
=
(33)

Now, if we are told that there is an error on the symbol that we receive, then we
know that it could be any of the M-1 symbols that we choose by mistake. Then
the probability of getting a particular symbol when we have an error is:

1 M
P
e
(34)

17
Now, the question is, how many of these will have n bits in error out of the k
possible bits. The solution is s combination:

)! ( !
!
n k n
k
n
k

=
|
|
.
|

\
|
(35)


thus the probability of receiving a symbol with n bits in error is:

1
|
|
.
|

\
|
M
P
n
k
e
(36)

The average number of bits in error per symbol is:

|
|
.
|

\
|
k
n
e
M
P
n
k
n
1
1
(37)

Now, the probability that a bit is in error is:

=

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
k
n
e
b
M
P
n
k
n
k
P
1
1
1
(38)

(it is divided by 1/k because the symbols has k bits)

after some mathematic manipulation, the probability that a bit is in error is:

e k
k
b
P P
1 2
2
1

or SER BER
k
k
1 2
2
1

(39)

The BER depends on the energy per symbol Es and the noise power spectral
density ( )
o
N , so the signal power is given by:
18

s s
R E S = (40)

where
s
R = symbol rate =
0
1
T
To is the symbol duration

The signal power in function of energy bit (
b
E ) is given by:

b b
R E S = =
b
R bit rate

There are k bits per symbol, then there are
k
T
0
seconds per bit and therefore

0
T
k
R
b
= = Rs k (41)

The bandwidth efficiency describes the ability of a modulation scheme to
accommodate data within a limited bandwidth and is given by

B
R
B
= q b/s/Hz (42)

The power efficiency (
0
N
E
b
) is related to the Shannon channel capacity theorem,
where de maximum possible bandwidth efficiency is limited by the noise in the
channel.

) 1 ( log
2 max
N
S
B
C
B
+ = = q (43)

19
The table 1 shows a resume of SER, bandwidth efficiency
B
q and the BER is
obtained from the equation that relates the BER from SER for several modulation
formats.

Modulation
scheme
SER BER
B
q
(b/s/Hz)
Binary
OOK
ASK
(On-Off
keying)
|
|
.
|

\
|
0
N
E
Q
b

|
|
.
|

\
|
0
N
E
Q
b


2
1

FSK non
coherent
detection
0
2
2
1
N
E
b
e


0
2
2
1
N
E
b
e



1
FSK
coherent
detection
|
|
.
|

\
|
0
N
E
Q
b

|
|
.
|

\
|
0
N
E
Q
b


2
PSK
coherent
detection
|
|
.
|

\
|
0
2
N
E
Q
b

|
|
.
|

\
|
0
2
N
E
Q
b


0.5
DPSK
non
coherent
detection
0
2
1
N
E
b
e


0
2
1
N
E
b
e



0.5
M-PAM
0
2
) 1 (
6
(
) 1 ( 2
N M
E
Q
M
M
m
s

=
=
M
i
s
m
s
i
E
M
E
1
1

0 0
2
2
2
) 1 (
log 6
(
log
) 1 ( 2
N
E
N M
M
Q
M M
M
b

)

2
log
2
M

20
QAM
0
2
2
) 1 (
log 3
( )
1
1 ( 4
N
E
M
M
Q
M
b



2
log
2
M

MFSK -
coherent
detection
0
2
log
( ) 1 (
N
M E
Q M
b
s

3
log 2
2
+ M
M

MFSK
non
coherent
detection
0
2
2
log
2
1
N
MEb
e
M

s

M
M
2
log 2

MPSK
M N
M E
Q
b
t
sin
log 2
( 2
0
2
s

2
log
2
M


Transformations can be done to get BER from SER on multilevel signaling.




OSNR measurements in a WDM system

The use of OSNR (Optical signal noise rate) as a signal quality measure is
pointed out that it does not account for signal distortion effects. Today the optical
systems use digital transmission, so the system quality is specified in terms of
BER. Many systems requires longer transmission distances so the systems
require the use of optical amplifiers (OAs). The system requires monitoring of the
optical signal quality throughout the complete transmission route.

The best quality measure is done with the BER, but it is not possible to use
directly in the optical domain. The procedure is to take out part of the signal and
use a demux, detector and finally regenerate this one electrically. All this
requirement is expensive and the advantage of avoiding electro-optical
regeneration in the optical path is partly lost.
21

The OSNR does not take into account the distortions on the signal that is caused
by:

- Non ideal modulation properties of the laser
- The effect of laser phase noise
- Fiber dispersion (chromatic and polarization mode dispersion)
- Fiber non-linearities

Thus, the OSNR can not give information of errors caused by signal distortions.
Hower, it may still be possible to design WDM systems in such a way that
distortions effects are not significant.

The combination of high data rate and narrow channel spacing limit OSNR as a
measure. To obtain a more definitive measure of signal quality at multi-channel
interface, it is necessary to filter each channel and perform optical eye-diagram
or BER measurements.


The relationship of Q-factor to BER is given by

BER= |
.
|

\
|
2 2
1 Q
erfc (44)

The logarithmic value of Q (in dB) is related to the OSNR is given by

c
dB
B
B
OSNR Q
0
log 20 = (45)

where
0
B is the optical bandwidth of the end device (photo detector) and
c
B is the
electrical bandwidth of the receiver filter.
22

Some practical cases where dominant source of noise is signal spontaneous
noise, the BER is given by

|
|
.
|

\
|

=
e n
B P G
GP
Q BER
) 1 ( 2
(46)

If a series of optical amplifiers are used, the BER is given by:

|
|
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
+ +
=
OSNR
OSNR
B
B
Q BER
e
4 1 1
2
0
(47)
References

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Networks, Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. LT-4, pp. 864-869, July
1986.

[2] Green, Paul E., The Future of Fiber-Optic Computer Networks, IEEE
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[4] Cantrell, C. D., Transparent Optical Metropolitan-Area Networks, Invited
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23
[5] Cantrell, C. D. and Dawn Hollenbeck, Optical Impairments in Transparent
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[6] Jopson, B. and A. Gnauck, Dispersion Compensation for Optical Fiber
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[7] Gnauck, A. H. and R.M. Thompson Dispersion Compensation for Optical
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[8] Couch, L. W. II, Digital and Analog Communications Systems, Fifth
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[9] Walkin, s. and J. Conradi, Multilevel Signaling for Increasing the Reach of
10 Gb/s Lightwave Systems, Journal Of Lightwave Technology, vol. 17,
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[10] Yonega, K. et al., Optical Duobinary Transmission System with No
receiver Sensitivity Degaradation, Electronics Letters, vol. 31, no. 4, pp.
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[11] Wuth T., W. Kaiser, and W. Rosenkranz, Impact of Self-Phase
Modulation on Bandwidth Efficient Modulation Formats, OFC 2001.

[12] Zaid, M. A., Envelope Detection and Correlation of SSB, Electronics
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[13] Sieben, M., J. Conradi, D. Dodds and S. Walkin, 10 Gb/s Optical Single
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