Impact of Random Group Delay Ripple on the Cascadability of Wavelength Select Switches for Nyquist-Pulse-Shaped Signals

We report on the impact that the random group delay ripple of wavelength select switches has on Nyquist-pulse-shaped signals and on the cascadability of wavelength select switches (WSSs) for use as wavelength-based routers within optical communication networks. We show how to simulate the appropriat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of lightwave technology 2016-09, Vol.34 (17), p.4162-4168
Main Authors: Duill, Sean P. O., Barry, Liam P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bit error rate
Communications networks
Computer simulation
Delays
Group delay
Networks
Optical communication
Optical fiber networks
Optical filters
optical networks
Optical switches
Passband
Performance evaluation
pulse shaping
Repair & maintenance
Ripples
Switches
Switching theory
Uncertainty
wavelength division multiplexing
wavelength routing
wavelength select switch
Wavelengths
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Summary:We report on the impact that the random group delay ripple of wavelength select switches has on Nyquist-pulse-shaped signals and on the cascadability of wavelength select switches (WSSs) for use as wavelength-based routers within optical communication networks. We show how to simulate the appropriate WSS filter response that accounts for the random group delay ripple and use this within a numerical simulator to predict the performance of communication networks based on WSSs. We find that the random group delay ripple could lead to large bit error rates in recirculating loop experiments, whereby the signal sees the same group delay upon each pass through the loop; though, as in a realistic network, if independent WSSs with uncorrelated group delay ripples are concatenated together then we predict that the system performance would be limited by the accumulated amplified spontaneous emission noise in the network. These results indicate the suitability of WSSs to construct large scale networks with wavelength-based routing functionality extending over 30 switching nodes.
ISSN:0733-8724
1558-2213
DOI:10.1109/JLT.2016.2593338