Abstract

As optical networks become larger and more complex, optical crosstalk can develop into an important performance impairment factor. A new simulation methodology is used for the study of performance degradations due to linear optical crosstalk in WDM optical networks. It is based on a combination of wavelength- and time-domain simulation that provides for calculation of error probabilities and system margins in complex WDM network architectures. Such simulations can be used as an effective tool for setting crosstalk performance criteria for individual components as well as switch architectures. It was found that for a relatively complex Wavelength Selective Cross-connect (WSXC) mesh topology with dilated switching fabrics, individual crosstalk levels better than -14.7 dB are necessary to achieve an acceptable Bit Error Rate (BER) of 10⁻⁹.

© 1998 Optical Society of America