Calculation of the dispersion penalty for the route design of single-mode systems

A system model for analyzing the effects of dispersion when multilongitudinal-mode laser diodes are used is presented. The analysis considers in a general manner the digital symbol statistics, the system pulse shaping, the laser diode spectrum, the laser diode extinction ratio, and mode partition noise. For mode partition noise, separate consideration is given to the statistics of the longitudinal-mode powers within a baud period and to the statistics between different baud periods. It is demonstrated that failure to separate the mode partition statistics in this manner can lead to underestimation of the dispersion penalty. By incorporating statistical models for the important system parameters, a statistical approach to route design is demonstrated