Nonlinear inverse synthesis for optical links with distributed Raman amplification

Abstract

Nonlinear Fourier transform (NFT) and eigenvalue communication with the use of nonlinear signal spectrum (both discrete and continuous) have been recently discussed as a promising transmission method to combat fiber nonlinearity impairments. However, because the NFT-based transmission method employs the integrability property of the lossless nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE), the original approach can only be applied directly to optical links with ideal distributed Raman amplification. In this paper, we investigate in details the impact of a non-ideal Raman gain profile on the performance of the nonlinear inverse synthesis (NIS) scheme, in which the transmitted information is encoded directly onto the continuous part of the nonlinear signal spectrum. We propose the lossless path-averaged (LPA) model for fiber links with non-ideal Raman gain profile by taking into account the average effect of the Raman gain. We show that the NIS scheme employing the LPA model can offer a performance gain of 3 dB regardless of the Raman gain profiles.