Crosstalk penalties in a bidirectional fiber-optic WDM system

Crosstalk power penalties were calculated for a bidirectional fiber-optic wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) system (622 Mb/s at 1300 nm in one direction and 155 Mb/s at 1550 nm in the other) using the system simulation program Simulation of Fiber-Optic Communication Systems (SIFOCS). Nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) and return-to-zero (RZ) modulation formats were investigated with the result that, in most cases, the power penalty was shown to depend only weakly on individual system properties and is close to the values found in the literature, but there are exceptions where it may be greater than usual (e.g. at 622 Mb/s RZ). These can be detected and investigated with the methods reported. The crosstalk power penalty becomes excessive only for signal-to-crosstalk power ratios well below 10 dB and is negligible for values greater than 15 dB. The calculation methods used can be easily adapted to other systems, e.g. to systems with more closely spaced wavelengths