Extinction ratio strategy: a new method to exploit the use of electronic equalization in dispersion-limited systems

In this paper, we propose a new transmission scheme to strongly extend the maximum reachable distance of a typical optical metro network link. Basically, we vary the extinction ratio (ER) of NRZ signal adding CW power in order to deal with more linear channels after the O/E conversion. We investigate the performance of electronic equalization in dispersion-limited systems when a signal with a non-infinite extinction ratio is transmitted. We demonstrate that this simple strategy can strongly extend the maximum system reachable distance.