Dependence of nonlinear interference on mode dispersion and modulation format in strongly-coupled SDM transmissions

We study the role of the modulation format in the interaction between mode dispersion and the fiber nonlinear interference (NLI) in space-division multiplexed (SDM) systems with strongly-coupled spatial modes. We show that the interplay between mode dispersion and the modulation format has a significant impact on the magnitude of cross-phase modulation (XPM). We propose a simple formula that accounts for the modulation-format dependence of the XPM variance in the presence of arbitrary levels of mode dispersion, thus extending the ergodic Gaussian noise model. (c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

We investigate the impact of modulation format on the interaction between mode dispersion and fiber nonlinear interference in space-division multiplexed systems. The results show that the interplay between mode dispersion and modulation format significantly affects the magnitude of cross-phase modulation. We propose a simple formula that takes into account the modulation-format dependence of cross-phase modulation variance under arbitrary levels of mode dispersion, thus extending the ergodic Gaussian noise model.