Inter-channel nonlinear phase noise compensation using optical injection locking

We propose optical injection locking (OIL) to enable compensation of the inter-channel nonlinear phase noise, which is dominated by cross-phase modulation (XPM). In this paper, injection locking is used to create a local oscillator for a homodyne receiver from a residual carrier. The locking is fast enough to follow XPM-phase distortion, but slow enough to reject the signal bands, which are spaced slightly away from the pilot. The homodyne receiver thus partially cancels XPM, as it is common to the signals and the pilot. An experimental 7-channel WDM system gives 1-dB (0.7-dB) improvement in the peak Q of the center channel, for QPSK (16-QAM) modulated OFDM subcarriers, and increased the transmission reach by 320 km. The optimum performance was achieved at an injection ratio of -45 dB, with the injected power as low as -24.5 dBm. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement