966
7, JULY 2001
A General and Rigorous WDM Receiver Model
Targeting 10–40-Gb/s Channel Bit Rates
G. Jacobsen and P. Wildhagen, Member, IEEE
Abstract—We present a general and rigorously formulated dy-
namic receiver model aiming at 10–40-Gb/s wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM) system design applications. A demultiplexing
(DEMUX) characteristic with periodic transfer function has been
treated in detail and it has been indicated how the model should be
adjusted to take into consideration a general type of noise spectral
density (NSD). The bit error ratio (BER) is evaluated accounting
for the influence of non-Gaussian detected amplified spontaneous
emission (ASE) noise, noise correlation between stochastic noise
samples in the receiver, the gain and effective noise figure variation
with wavelength of optical amplifiers, channel crosstalk, and inter-
symbol interference (ISI) effects caused by nonideal signal mod-
ulation, fiber dispersion, fiber nonlinearities, optical MUX, and
DEMUX filtering and the impulse response of the electrical low-
pass filter in the receiver. Also, the influence of shot and thermal
noise is taken into account. Numerical results for the BER are pre-
sented considering a realistic 16-channel 10-Gb/s WDM system op-
erating in the C-band using normal transmission fibers and in-
cluding cascaded erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) with dis-
persion compensating fibers.
Index Terms—Error analysis, optical amplifiers, optical com-
munication systems, optical filters, optical receivers, transmission
system performance, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM).
I. INTRODUCTION
O PTICAL transmission systems using wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM) techniques (with up to 40 channels
per system and channel bit rates up to 10 Gb/s) operating in the
1550-nm fiber transmission window are currently being used
in the telecom fiber back-bone network. Efficient WDM-based
network protection schemes are being developed for different
optical node connectivity (see, e.g., [1], [2]).
In the practical design of current and future WDM systems
(and WDM-based optical networks), it is imperative to have a
rigorous dynamic (time-dependent) system model that describes
the complete system including interaction effects between dif-
ferent parts of the system. In this paper, we will focus upon a
presentation of a general and rigorous formulation of a WDM
relevant receiver model. In order to fully appreciate the findings
from the model we will, however, need to present it in a total
WDM systems perspective because the optical signal which is
detected by the receiver is influenced by the total transmission
link.
Manuscript received November 28, 2000; revised March 27, 2001.
G. Jacobsen is with Ericsson Telecom AB, Stockholm S-126 25, Sweden.
P. Wildhagen is with Virtual Photonics Inc., Berlin D-10587, Germany.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0733-8724(01)05310-5.
0733–8724/01$10.00 © 2001 IEEE
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 19, NO.
A. General WDM System Perspective
This subsection will be devoted to a brief general discussion
about which transmission issues should be covered in a com-
plete high bit-rate WDM transmission model in order to pro-
vide a correct description of the optical signal which is detected
at the receiver.
As a starting point, it is important that the optical signal which
is emitted from the WDM transmitters is not amplitude modu-
lated ideally. The signal is influenced by signal chirp and signal
time dynamics from external modulators (see, e.g., [3]).
The transmitter signal specifics will influence how the fiber
dispersion [chromatic as well as polarization mode dispersion
(PMD)] changes the signal shape during fiber transmission.
In effect the signal propagation in the fiber may lead to in-
tersymbol interference (ISI) effects caused by dispersion and
in addition by the nonlinear fiber effects such as four-wave
mixing (FWM), self- and cross-phase modulation (SPM and
XPM), stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), and stimulated
Raman scattering (SRS) [4]. The nonlinear fiber effects also
lead to interchannel signal crosstalk.
A complete system model must also account for the use of
erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) or Raman amplifiers as
optical booster, in-line, and preamplifiers. One important aspect
is to account for the physical amplifier gain and noise character-
istic as a function of pump power as well as input signal channel
powers and wavelengths (see, e.g., [5]–[7]).
A further important point is to account for the effect of optical
filtering in the transmission path because this directly influences
the performance of the receiver. In the design of the WDM sys-
tems the practical transmission window is in the 1530–1565-nm
range (C-band) or 1565–1625-nm range (L-band). Optical noise
filtering may be applied in order to diminish the influence of
amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise from the part of
the optical gain band which is outside the transmission window.
The accumulated ASE noise may limit the effective signal am-
plification of the last amplifiers in a cascaded link due to satu-
ration effects, may lead to signal-ASE interaction via nonlinear
fiber effects, and may also influence directly the bit error ratio
(BER) performance of the receiver. In addition, it is to be con-
sidered that practical optical demultiplexing (DEMUX) filters
frequently are of the so-called array wave-guide (AWG) type
[8], [9] which has a periodic optical frequency transfer function
with a free spectral range (FSR) that allows detection at the re-
ceiver of part of the ASE noise from the whole 1510–1610-nm
band. The DEMUX characteristic thus causes enhanced influ-
ence of the ASE noise. In addition, imperfect DEMUX optical
filtering with an effective bandwidth of a few times the bit-rate
and channel separations of less than the order of 10 times the
JACOBSEN AND WILDHAGEN: GENERAL AND RIGOROUS WDM RECEIVER MODEL
bit-rate leads to signal channel crosstalk and causes ISI effects
as well. The detected ASE noise has a non-Gaussian probability
density function [10] and also this point needs careful consid-
eration in an accurate (time-dynamic) receiver and transmission
system design.
B. Receiver Model Perspective
Classical receiver models for preamplified optical re-
ceivers—that account in the simplest form possible for the
non-Gaussian nature of the detected ASE noise (but do not con-
sider signal filtering or ISI effects)—assume an integrator-type
bandpass filter impulse response as well as a discrete-type
integrator impulse response of the lowpass filter [11], [12].
The noise correlation effects have been accounted for in re-
ceiver models that are, in principle, based on the classical model
for heterodyne receivers by Schwartz et al. [13]. This model
considers the operation of the receiver low-pass filter and de-
tector as that of adding a number of jointly distributed squared
Gaussian variables and applies an eigenvalue diagonalization
to decompose the variables into independent squared Gaussian
ones such that the evaluation of probability density functions
(pdfs) is straightforward. This has been used by several authors
in order to give a model formulation for bandpass filters with
Lorentzian transfer function [14]–[16].
In [17], an extension of the last receiver model discussed
above was presented to a realistic WDM transmission system
environment including effects of practical optical amplifiers, re-
alistic optical filters including a periodic DEMUX character-
istic, and shot and thermal noise. The periodic DEMUX char-
acteristic required a reformulation receiver model from a basic
point of view. It should be noted that the models in [14]–[17] do
not account for signal amplitude variations over the bit-period
(ISI) caused by fiber dispersion and nonlinear effects and only
allows a simplistic description of the electrical filtering in the
receiver—assuming a discrete integrator time response of the
filter.
The main purpose of the present extension of the receiver
model in [17] is to account for ISI effects that are of special
importance when the channel bit-rate is increased to 10 Gb/s or
above. In the new dynamic model formulation the detailed (low
pass) frequency response of the receiver is taken into account.
Numerical examples using the rigorous receiver model will be
given for a complete C-band EDFA-based WDM system with
Mach–Zehnder (MZ) or electroabsorption ON–OFF modulation
and taking into account the influence of chromatic dispersion,
SPM, XPM, and FWM. The influence of signal-ASE interaction
during transmission as well as of SRS, SBS, and PMD is not
considered in the current examples and considerations of Raman
amplification (and L-band system design) are also left out.
II. THEORETICAL OUTLINE
A system schematic example for a WDM system is given in
Fig. 1.
The bottom-line specification of the system quality from the
user’s point of view is in terms of the available BER for each
transmitted signal channel. That is, the system manufacturer
should guarantee for a specified system configuration (number
967
Fig. 1. Simplified system schematic for a general point-to-point WDM
system with 10–40-Gb/s channel bit-rate. Tx: transmitter (including external
modulation device). Rx: receiver (cf. Fig. 2). OA: optical amplifier (of
EDFA/Raman type—in-line amplifiers have two stages with included
dispersion compensating fiber). MUX: optical multiplexer. DEMUX: optical
demultiplexer.
of channels, transmission distance, number of and physical
placement of cascaded optical amplifiers) a worst-case BER.
We will provide a mathematical formulation for the BER in
the following. The initial formulation of Section II is a gener-
alization of the one in [17] and gives the modification of that
formulation which is necessary in order to include ISI effects
caused by transmitter chirp and other modulation imperfections,
fiber dispersion, nonlinear fiber effects, and the DEMUX. Sec-
tion III outlines further (more approximative) modifications that
are needed in order to also account for the detailed lowpass fre-
quency response of the receiver. This section also discusses how
to consider suitably long bit sequences in the detection. In the
numerical examples that are presented in Section IV, we have
combined the relevant component and system part models in a
system schematic (i.e., total system description) to be practically
evaluated within the simulation tool VPItransmissionMaker™
WDM software [18].
In Sections II and III, the shot noise influence is accounted
for using a simple Gaussian noise model. In Appendix A, it is
shown how the (exact) Poisson statistics of the incoming light
photons may be included in the formulation.
Appendix B discusses how the optical AWG filtering model
may be adjusted in order to describe a general ASE noise spec-
tral density incident upon the photodiode.
A. Outline of our System Model Prior to the DEMUX
In the numerical examples of the current paper we will
consider a C-band WDM system implementation using EDFAs
as optical amplifiers. With reference to the system schematic
of Fig. 1, we observe that the optical signal which is emitted
from the WDM transmitters is influenced by signal chirp
and signal time dynamics from the external modulators and
that this has to be taken into account when accounting for
fiber dispersion (and nonlinear) effects. We have modeled
this effect for electroabsorption (EA) modulators using the
effective (drive voltage dependent) -parameter [3], [19].
Mathematical detail of this model is not the subject of the
968
current presentation. The MZ-type of external modulators
can be described within a similar model framework [20]. The
effects of imperfect amplitude modulation (including signal
chirp) will be seen in the transmitted electromagnetic field for
each channel and the transmitter signal specifics will influence
how the fiber dispersion (chromatic as well as PMD) changes
the signal shape during fiber transmission. In effect the signal
propagation in the fiber may lead to ISI caused by dispersion
and in addition the nonlinear fiber effects such as FWM, SPM,
XPM, SBS, and SRS may add to the linear dispersion and lead
to interchannel signal crosstalk. In a complete WDM system
model (Fig. 1), the fiber propagation through the transmission
fiber as well as dispersion compensation fibers—which may
be included within in-line (or other) optical amplifiers—needs
consideration. The total fiber effect is in principle accounted for
in the Schrödinger equation formulation which describes the
combined nonlinear and dispersion effects on the deterministic
WDM signal components (see, e.g., [4], [6], [18], and [21]).
The dynamic interaction between these signals and the ASE
noise which builds up as a function of transmission distance due
to cascaded optical amplifiers is not dealt with in the current
Schrödinger equation formulation and neither are PMD, SRS,
or SBS effects.
The WDM system model must also account for the use of
optical amplification using EDFAs as optical booster, in-line,
and preamplifiers. One important aspect is to account for the
physical amplifier gain and noise characteristic as a function
of pump power as well as input signal channel powers and
wavelengths (see, e.g., [5]). For EDFAs—operating in the
C-band—this can be done in a physically straightforward way
by applying a black box description. This description generates
model amplifier gain and noise values for a specified input
power spectral density interpolating from measured gain and
noise curves [18], [22], [23].
From a mathematical point of view, the complete fiber prop-
agation of the signal can be considered a separate problem from
the receiver modeling which is discussed as the main topic here.
The resulting deterministic signal variation with time and the
ASE statistics are simply inputs to the receiver model. Note that
the time variation depends on the bit-sequence prior to the bit
under detection such that in reality a specific value of the BER
should be assigned to each received bit and the resulting system
BER (which is measured in a practical system experiment) is
obtained by averaging over the contributions for each received
bit in the received sequence.1
B. Receiver Model Formulation
The main topic of the current presentation is the receiver
model which we will now outline in mathematical terms based
on the simpler form of the model in [17]. The receiver model can
be completely given once the optical filtering (i.e., the DEMUX)
and the electrical receiver is specified. The DEMUX is given as
an AWG with transmission peaks seen by a signal at a given
optical frequency . In our analysis each peak has a sinc form
1The signal time variation will also be influenced by bit-pattern dependent
crosstalk from adjacent channels which is not completely filtered away by the
optical DEMUX. This is, in general, a small effect for a well-designed WDM
system.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 19, NO. 7, JULY 2001
Fig. 2. Schematic of electrical receiver model, which is specified via the
photodiode (PD) with responsivity R, avalanche gain M , and excess noise
factor F , the lowpass-filter (LPF) with impulse response h (t), and a
decision circuit.
in the optical frequency domain [i.e., a perfect integrator time
response of duration (in an equivalent baseband formu-
lation)]. This means that each DEMUX peak has an optical noise
bandwidth of . In the following analysis we assume
that the ASE noise which is transmitted through a DEMUX peak
is statistically independent of the noise transmitted through any
other peak. Furthermore, we consider a situation where the de-
tected transmission peaks—that are determined by the FSR of
the AWG—are separated by several hundred gigaHertz in op-
tical frequency, and this means that the signal (which is trans-
mitted through peak number ) will only beat with the in-phase
ASE noise component which is transmitted through this peak.2
The receiver photodiode (Fig. 2) is an Avalanche Photo Diode
(APD) with responsivity , gain , and excess noise factor
. (A pin photodiode thus has .) For
the lowpass filter in the receiver, we assume an impulse response
of , which in the first part of the analysis is a perfect inte-
grator of duration , the bit-time. Here,
denotes the noise bandwidth specified in a single-sided defini-
tion. The signal current which is sampled after the lowpass filter
in the receiver may be viewed as consisting of a number of partly
correlated current samples. The time separation between sam-
ples (which determines the effective correlation between
ASE noise samples) is the same for all samples, but the value
may be specified freely in our model.
For easy later reference, we note that the ASE noise spectral
density (given per polarization state) is denoted as a
function of optical frequency .
The starting point for the detailed mathematical analysis is
the field incident upon the DEMUX. The deterministic part of
this field is assumed to be fully coherent and to be centered at
a transmission peak of the AWG. The field which is received
during a bit-period is in an equivalent baseband notation given
by the vector
(1)
where the unity length vectors are parallel relative orthog-
onal to the field vector and the (time averaged) received power
2Note that any type of impulse response (with related correlation function and
noise bandwidth) may be considered in the model. Without loss of generality, we
will, in the present analysis, focus on the ideal integrator response. In [14]–[16],
the impulse response of a Lorentzian filter is considered.
JACOBSEN AND WILDHAGEN: GENERAL AND RIGOROUS WDM RECEIVER MODEL 969

for a ONE and a ZERO symbol is denoted with [units covariance matrix with elements specified in (4), [13], and
of Watt]. In (1) specifies a complex ASE noise sample [25].4
[with independent (real) in-phase component and (imaginary) The covariance matrices for the different DEMUX peaks are
quadrature component] transmitted through DEMUX transmis- proportional, and each one can be diagonalized using the prop-
sion peak number , with parallel polarization relative to the re- erty
ceived signal. A similar definition applies for . In the fol-
lowing derivation, the optical signal frequency is assumed to be (5)
corresponding to the th DEMUX transmission peak.3
where is a diagonal matrix (which has only nonzero el-
For times , the function specifies the ampli-
tude variation due to imperfect signal modulation, the influence ements (denoted with in the main di-
of the optical MUX device, dispersion, and nonlinear effects of agonal). is a unitary matrix with the eigenvectors (de-
the transmission fiber. Thus, in the absence of ISI effects and noted ) of as its columns. In (5) *
with only one signal channel, . denotes complex conjugation. Note that for different DEMUX
We consider when determining the BER first the determin- peaks described via indexes with , we have
istic input electromagnetic field to the receiver photodiode. The which means that applies
field is given by for all DEMUX peaks.
The resulting form of the MGF can in this case be given in
a form which is a straightforward generalization of the one in
[17] as

(2)

This allows a specification of the signal sample vector (with

entries)

(3) (6)

Here, is the time separation between signal
samples and is the (relative) sampling time which must be
chosen such that . The effective integration
time of the ideal “integrate and dump” electrical lowpass filter is
thus . The purpose of considering in the model a
large number of signal samples (i.e., a “large” -value) is to be
able to resolve the time variations in the optical signal amplitude
that is incident on the photodiode.
Second, the correlation properties for the ASE noise needs
consideration. The ASE noise power which is passed by the
peak number [in one signal polarization state cf. (1)] is de-
noted . After detection by the photodiode it is given in
units of current as . Now the au-
tocorrelation function for one ASE transmission peak may be
specified as
(4)
otherwise.
From this, the autocorrelation matrix—corresponding to the
signal vector discussed above—is evaluated by considering
noise samples during the effective measurement time of the
receiver. The correlation properties are specified via the
3We consider system bit rates above the order of 10 Gb/s. This means that for
reasonably high quality DFB lasers with linewidths below the order of 20 MHz,
phase noise is not a significant noise source [24] and it will not be accounted
for in the current model formulation.
where * denotes complex conjugation. Note that in (6),
the eigenvalue specifies the contribution from each of the
Karhunen–Loeve eigenfunctions that forms the orthonormal
expansion base behind the mathematical diagonalization and
that the quantity specifies the projection of the
deterministic optical signal at the DEMUX output on the
eigenfunction number [26], [27]. Equation (6) is identical to
[17], eq. (13) but there the omission of ISI influence meant that
all signal vector elements of the vector are equal and this
was directly included into the formulation.
The MGF that accounts also for thermal and shot noise is
given by
(7)
where ( is the white single-sided noise cur-
rent spectral density [A Hz]) denotes the average thermal and
shot noise power (
is the electron charge and the detected power).
This assumes a Gaussian pdf for the thermal and shot noise [17].
4It may be noted that in order to have a sufficient accuracy in the current ideal
receiver description (i.e., to be able to specify a receiver sensitivity with less
than 0.2-dB numerical inaccuracy [25]), the number of samples should be in the
order of M  23 
B =(2B ) 3M , where M denotes the largest number
possible of independent samples to be added within the integration time of the
lowpass filter. For B = 1=(2T ), we note that M is the number of samples
considered in the classical receiver models [11], [12].
970
In Appendix A, it is shown how the (exact) Poisson statistics
for the shot noise may be included in (6) for the pin photodiode
case.
The pdf for the signal current for a received ONE symbol is
now found by inverse Laplace transformation of the MGF for a
received power of and the pdf for a ZERO symbol is found
for the power level of .
In the practical evaluation the characteristic function (CF) is
used by observing that where is
the imaginary unit and is the (real) -parameter. Now the
pdf is simply the inverse Fourier transform of the . tion, it is necessary to include some approximative steps. As a
Assuming that a sequence of ONE and ZERO symbols (the
total number of symbols is ) is received, the pdf has to be
determined for each symbol in the sequence, and we now have
the average BER
(8)
where denotes the signal threshold current. Equation (8)
can be used to specify a worst-case BER by considering only
two symbols, namely the worst-case ONE and the worst-case
ZERO symbol in the sequence (and taking ). This al-
lows a quick evaluation of the BER, and for a well-designed
system (with many symbols in the sequence that performs close
to the worst cases) the result will be close (i.e., within a factor
of ten) of the result using the full sequence. In the numerical ex-
amples of this paper, we will use the worst-case BER for design
considerations.
III. INCLUSION OF ISI EFFECTS CAUSED BY THE FREQUENCY
RESPONSE OF THE RECEIVER
The present way of modeling the ISI from the lowpass
filter in the receiver follows the main idea of the presentation
which is outlined in very brief form—for a receiver with a
single DEMUX peak in the current formulation—in [28]. Our
present explicit matrix formulation—based upon the classical
approach by Schwartz et al. [13]—brings forward some unique
observations that are imperative in order to model practical
WDM systems. It should, for instance, be noted that although
the influence of the low-pass filter impulse response can be
accounted for as shown in Section III-A, the approach is
somewhat approximate. This is the case because the basic
mathematical assumption in the operation of the electrical
lowpass filter is the addition of a given number ( ) of signal
samples, and is specified via an effective duration of the
integration for the perfect integrator of the model [see (3)],
which is approximately given from the lowpass filter noise
bandwidth, . Furthermore, the detailed formulation is
needed in order to show the influence of the optimum sampling
time [see (3)]. Also, it is shown that an alternating current
(ac) coupled low-pass filter—which is of significant practical
interest—cannot be modeled directly, and a workaround is
indicated.
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 19, NO. 7, JULY 2001
A. Modifying the Deterministic Signal
The ISI effects that are caused by the frequency response of
the receiver [especially by the effective frequency cutoff at low
frequencies (in the 100-kHz range for a 10–40-Gb/s receiver)]
may cause severe values of the BER for isolated bit symbols that
follow long sequences of the opposite bit symbol. This ISI effect
is seen directly in the detected eye diagram, after the receiver
low-pass filter if long signal sequences are considered, and is
not included in the description until now.
In order to account for these ISI effects in the BER evalua-
first step, the deterministic detection current is modified. This
current is now defined as
(9)
where denotes the impulse response of the lowpass filter.
This shows that we may account for the ISI effects using the
formulation of the previous section by modifying the elements
of the signal vector of (3) such that the vector elements
refer to the normalized signal time function .5
The present formulation assumes implicitly that a direct
signal (dc) signal component (i.e., the average received optical
power level) is measured by the electrical lowpass filter.
Thus, a practical ac coupled filter should be modeled using a
workaround filter specification with a passband around dc so
narrow that the equivalent time response is large compared to
the duration of the signal bit sequence. In this way, the model
still describes the ac baseline wander effects. [These originate
due to the stopband between the narrow passband at dc and the
physical cutoff frequency of the filter. The bandwidth of the
stopband (around 100 kHz) is much larger than that of the dc
passband (less than 1 kHz).]
The resulting MGF is again given formally by (6) and (7).
B. Modification of the ASE Noise Description
Section III-A may be interpreted as describing the combined
operation of the photodiode and the electrical lowpass filter as
that of adding squared samples of an equivalent deterministic
signal (which describes the operation of the electrical lowpass
filter in terms of an equivalent operation on the optical signal
prior to photodetection). We will now modify the ASE noise
description in the same way by noting that signal model of Sec-
tion III-A leads to an equivalent ASE noise power at the input to
the photodiode such that the covariance function in (4) becomes
otherwise.
(10)
In this way, the effective noise correlation accounts for the
DEMUX characteristic as well as for the receiver lowpass fil-
tering, and this is taken into account in the noise diagonaliza-
5A worst-case ONE (ZERO) symbol in a sequence of bits is now given
by—for received ONEs (ZEROs)—the smallest (largest) value of the signal
current at the decision time, t .
JACOBSEN AND WILDHAGEN: GENERAL AND RIGOROUS WDM RECEIVER MODEL
Fig. 3. Number of detected signal photons to have BER =10 as a function
of number of DEMUX peals for a preamplifier Rx with amplifier noise figure
of 3 dB and white ASE noise spectral density. Parameters: B = 30 GHz;
T = 100 ps; B = 5 GHz (ideal integrate-and-dump lowpass filter). Full
(dashed) curves are using the Gaussian (rigorous) receiver model. The lower
(upper) pair of curves is for optimum (fixed equal to 0.5 of the electrical eye
opening) decision threshold.
tion. Thus, the complete double filtering and detection process
of the receiver is now in principle accounted for; see e.g., the
general discussion in [15], [26], and [27].6
Now, the formal diagonalization procedure of Section III can
be seen as a Karhunen–Loeve expansion of the total double
stochastic detection process described by the optical bandpass
filter, the photodiode, and the electrical lowpass filter. The re-
sulting eigenvalues (i.e., ) and eigenvectors are modified
slightly compared to the case where the impulse response is
unity, but formally the resulting MGF is again given by (6) and
(7).
IV. NUMERICAL RESULTS
In the following, numerical results are given for a number
of cases considering as a specific example WDM systems
operating with 10-Gb/s channel bit rates in the C-band. For
simplicity reasons we neglect the influence of thermal receiver
noise.
A. Basic Numerical Results
First we consider, as a base reference case, the influence of
the number of DEMUX peaks for an ideal preamplifier receiver
with a white ASE spectral density over the total detected op-
tical bandwidth (Fig. 3), as well as in a situation where we have
a strong ASE contribution from the interfering peaks (10-dB
higher ASE level in interfering peaks, as in Fig. 4). The last
situation might occur in a practical system due to nonperfect
filtering of the 1530-nm ASE peak. Results for the required
number of received signal photons (i.e., generated photo-elec-
trons) per ONE symbol to have a 10 BER are evaluated using
the rigorous model as well as the Gaussian one. The specific
sensitivity results will depend upon the bit-sequence under con-
sideration. We consider here a pseudorahdom binary sequence
6From the form of (10), it is seen that the main influence on the resulting auto-
correlation function is from the optical (DEMUX) filtering, because the typical
time constant from this process,  , is typically much shorter than the time t for
significant deviation of the low-pass filter impulse response h (t) from h (0).
971
Fig. 4. As in Fig. 3, for a case where neighboring detected ASE peak has an
ASE power 10 dB higher than the signal peak.
Fig. 5. Number of detected signal photons to have a 10 BER for optimized
(3 lower curves) and a relative threshold of 0.5 (3 upper curves) as a function of
electrical bandwidth, B . Results are for B of 100 GHz (dash–dotted curves),
50 GHz (dashed curves), and 30 GHz (full curves).
(PRBS) bit-pattern of length and the BER is evaluated
based upon the worst-case ONE and the worst-case ZERO sym-
bols. From Fig. 3, it appears that the best sensitivity is obtained
using the optimized threshold and that the two models agree
to within about 1.3 dB for a white ASE noise spectral density.
From Fig. 4, it is first of all seen that the Gaussian model un-
derestimates the influence of several detected ASE peaks, es-
pecially when considering an optimized receiver threshold set-
ting. Second, it is seen that a significant increase in the required
number of photo-electrons may be caused by the detection of
multiple DEMUX peaks by up to around 7 dB.
Next, we consider in Fig. 5, for a single-channel system, the
influence of dynamic time properties for a single peak DEMUX
with optical noise bandwidths ranging from 30 to 100 GHz. For
simplicity, an alternating ONE/ZERO bit-pattern is considered
in the evaluations. The sensitivity for varying electrical noise
bandwidths (integrate-and-dump lowpass filter) are shown for
a fixed as well as an optimum electrical decision threshold.
Clearly, an optimum electrical noise bandwidth that minimizes
the influence of ISI exists for each DEMUX bandwidth, and
the optimum approaches the Nyquist value of 5 GHz for large
DEMUX bandwidth as expected. The optimum threshold set-
ting yields best sensitivity. For the lowest optical bandwidth,
the major optical noise filtering takes place at the DEMUX
972 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 19, NO. 7, JULY 2001

TABLE I
SYSTEM SPECIFICATION

Fig. 6. Dispersion influence on the BER for one 10-Gb/s channel transmitted
with ideal On–Off modulation. One pre-amp with noise figure of 3 dB is
considered. Transmission is over 100 km of “lossless” fiber (with the dispersion
parameter varying between 0 and 18 ps/nm/km in steps of 6 ps/nm/km). The
DEMUX has B = 30 GHz and two peaks inside the detection band. The
bit-sequence is a PRBS sequence with 2 0 1 symbols and the BER is
evaluated considering the two worst case symbols for B = 8 GHz (ideal
integrate-and-dump lowpass filter) and for an optimized threshold.

and the sensitivity is rather independent of the electrical band-

width. The sensitivity values will, for a realistic receiver imple-
mentation (especially for low electrical bandwidths), depend on
the detailed lowpass filter characteristic as well as the bit-se-
quence under consideration. Considering, for instance, a PRBS
sequence in the real case, the sensitivity might deviate some-
what from the idealized results given in Fig. 5.
In Fig. 6, the influence of dispersion of 100 km of fiber is
shown considering the worst-case ONE and ZERO symbol in
evaluating the BER for a PRBS sequence. It is interesting
to note that even a dispersion as low as 6 ps/nm/km yields ap-
proximately a 3-dB sensitivity penalty at 10 BER. The re-
sults are for an ideal integrate-and-dump electrical filter with
noise bandwidth of 8 GHz. When a fourth-order Bessel filter
with a noise bandwidth of 8 GHz is included, the sensitivity de-
grades about 1 dB at 10 BER.

handle.7 The second (booster) stage in the optical amplifier

B. Realistic 16-Channel 10-Gb/s WDM System
We will consider in the numerical examples a 16 channel as
shown in Fig. 1, but using 10-Gb/s channel bit-rate in a simple
system configuration with an optical booster amplifier, three
in-line optical amplifiers, and a preamplifier which enables
about 300-km nonrepeated transmission over conventional
single-mode fiber.
For 10-Gb/s WDM systems, it is imperative to include in
the system design the operation of dispersion compensating
components in the form of dispersion compensating fibers
or gratings. These components add attenuation in the signal
transmission path. In order to compensate for the added
attenuation, some or all of the EDFAs could be conveniently
made as two-stage amplifiers with dispersion-compensating
optics between the stages. In the two-stage amplifier the first
(preamplification) stage brings up the signal power to a level
which is convenient for the dispersion compensating optics to
compensates for the attenuation of the dispersion compensating
optics and boosts the output signal power. Optical filters are
included in the amplifiers in order to filter out the 1530-nm
ASE contribution and to provide a constant gain in the signal
wavelength range (1540–1565-nm wavelength). The EDFAs
are modeled in the Black Box formulation including the ASE
1530-nm noise filter and gain flattening filters.
We consider as our basic selected calculation example here
a 16-channel 10-Gb/s system, whose system and fiber parame-
ters are listed in Tables I and II. The system has four fiber links
of 80 km each and dispersion precompensation is used by in-
cluding in the booster and the three in-line amplifiers a disper-
sion compensating fiber that compensates for 80 km of normal
fiber dispersion. The amplifiers with dispersion compensation
has a prestage which is a 13-dBm amplifier (running with power
7Self-phase modulation is a disastrous nonlinear fiber effect in a dispersion
compensating fiber. This means that about 0 dBm/channel represents a limit for
the practical (linear) operation of the fiber.
JACOBSEN AND WILDHAGEN: GENERAL AND RIGOROUS WDM RECEIVER MODEL
TABLE II
FIBER PARAMETERS USED IN THE SIMULATIONS
regulation) followed by a typical dispersion compensating
fiber (with about 10-dB attenuation) and a booster-stage with
17-dBm output power. The output gain is equalized to within 1
dB. The system is modeled using a MZ modulator—which per-
forms pure amplitude modulation of the signal—as well as two
typical types of electroabsorption (EA) modulators (with blue
shift of the signal at the transition between ON and OFF states)
to generate the channel signal modulation. For each type of
modulator the system realization with four 80-km transmission
spans were considered as well as a dispersion overcompensated
system with the change that four 70-km transmission spans
were considered instead (and a 3-dB attenuator was included at
the entrance of each in-line amplifier and at the preamplifier in
order to ensure the same operation point for the EDFAs in the
two system configurations).
The detailed theoretical model for the fiber transmission fol-
lows the description in [21] but is modeled within the simu-
lation tool environment of VPItransmissionMaker WDM soft-
ware [18]. The model accounts for the impact of transmitter dis-
tortion effects (i.e., ISI caused by the filter function of the drive
electronics as well as the pulse-shape and the chirp of the optical
modulator), combined effects of fiber dispersion and fiber non-
linearities (self-phase and cross-phase modulation, four wave
mixing effects), the impact of signal crosstalk in the AWG and of
multiple detected AWG noise peaks, as well as the impact of the
receiver distortion effects (inter symbol interference caused by
the filter function of the DEMUX and the receiver electronics).
The behavior of the drive electronics, the optical modulator, and
the receiver electronics is specified via input-files. The fiber is
modeled with its dispersive parameters (first and second order)
and its nonlinear parameters. The fiber parameters are summa-
rized in Table II. Each of the signal channels are modulated with
uncorrelated PRBS sequences of length and the BER
is evaluated based upon the worst/best-case ONE and ZERO
symbol for the received signal.
1) Results: The signal power variation at the entrance to the
DEMUX is less than 1 dB and we have chosen channel 7, in the
973
Fig. 7. Worst case sensitivity for MZ modulation (full curves) and for two EA
modulators (dash–dotted and dashed curves). Best sensitivity in each case is for
80-km fiber spans and worst is for 70-km spans.
Fig. 8. As in Fig. 7, for the sensitivity case which is determined by the best
ONE and the best ZERO symbol.
center of the WDM channel grid, as being representative for all
16-signal channels.
First, we consider a receiver with optimized threshold. BER
results, summarized in Figs. 7 and 8, are evaluated by varying
an attenuator at the entrance to the preamplifier over a 25-dB
attenuation range and for an optimized decision threshold for
each received optical power level.8 Fig. 7 is for a worst-case
situation in which the BER is evaluated considering only the
worst-case ONE and the worst-case ZERO symbols in the
PRBS sequence. As expected, it appears that the system with
a MZ modulator—which allows the most efficient dispersion
compensation in the current system implementation—performs
better than the two different EA modulator systems (which have
similar performance—the one with the least blue shift influence
has the least penalty relative to the MZ modulator case). Fur-
thermore, the systems with optimized dispersion compensation
(80-km fiber links) always perform better than the nonoptimized
configuration (70-km link spans). The penalty due to nonop-
timized dispersion compensation is small for the MZ system
(around 2 dB at a BER of 10 , whereas it is larger (in the
order of 4 dB or more) for the EA systems. Note that the total
sensitivity penalty going from an MZ modulator with optimum
8The practical systems—without the attenuator—always have a BER less
than 10 .
974
Fig. 9. As in Fig. 7, for a fixed threshold of 0.5.
dispersion compensation to an EA modulator with nonoptimum
dispersion compensation can be as large as 11.8 dB (at a BER
of 10 . for return-to-zero (RZ) modulation], these assumptions may
In Fig. 8, we consider for the BER example of Fig. 7 the re-
sult using the best-case ONE symbol and the best-case ZERO
symbol. A significant difference (i.e., about 3.5 dB for the dis-
persion optimized MZ system at a BER of 10 appears be-
tween the two cases of Figs. 7 and 8, emphasizing that a trust-
worthy system design should be done on a worst-case basis. This
is the case because the worst case symbols will in most cases de-
termine the BER for a practical system [cf. (8)].
Moving now to the case of a fixed threshold of 0.5, we show
in Fig. 9 the worst-case BER results equivalent to Fig. 7. It is
obvious that a significant improvement in receiver sensitivity, in
the order of 2.5 dB or more for a BER around 10 , is obtained
using an optimized receiver threshold.
V. CONCLUSION
We have presented a general and rigorously formulated
dynamic receiver model aiming at practical 10–40-Gb/s WDM
system design applications. A DEMUX characteristic with
periodic transfer function has been treated in detail and it
has been indicated how the model should be adjusted to take
into consideration a general type of noise spectral density
(NSD). The BER is evaluated accounting for the influence of
non-Gaussian detected ASE noise, noise correlation between
stochastic noise samples in the receiver, the gain and effective
noise figure variation with wavelength of optical amplifiers,
channel crosstalk, and ISI effects caused by nonideal signal
modulation, fiber dispersion, fiber nonlinearities, optical
MUX and DEMUX filtering, and the impulse response of the
electrical low-pass filter in the receiver. Also, the influence of
shot noise and thermal noise is taken into account.
Numerical examples have been presented for representative
10-Gb/s single-channel and WDM system cases based on
a complete WDM system model implementation within the
VPItransmissionMaker WDM software [18]. From the ob-
tained results, it is obvious that the detection of multiple AWG
peaks may severely degrade the receiver sensitivity (by more
than 7 dB in the case we have considered). Furthermore, it
appears that a dynamic type of receiver model is imperative for
JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 19, NO. 7, JULY 2001
practical WDM system-dimensioning with a channel bit-rate
of 10 Gb/s (or above). This is especially the case for practical
dense WDM system design where MUX and DEMUX filters
with narrow bandwidths of a few times the bit-rate cause
significant pulse-shaping effects which need detailed consid-
eration interacting with nonideal modulation of the transmitter
optical signals (exemplified using models for practical MZ
and electroabsorption modulators) as well as with dispersion
and nonlinear fiber effects and signal crosstalk at the DEMUX
system stage. The resulting sensitivity for a realistic 16-channel
WDM system design—at a BER of 10 —has been shown to
vary as much as 11.8 dB for different system implementations.
The current general receiver model formulation relies on an
assumption of the ASE noise propagating independent of the
deterministic signals during transmission and that noise and
signal interaction in the photodetection can be described on a
mean power spectral density basis for the ASE noise influence.
At very high bit-rates above the order of 40 Gb/s [especially
no longer hold and the description of the signal propaga-
tion—that we have applied here—as well as the rigorous
receiver model needs reexamination in view of the possible
dynamic signal-ASE-noise-interaction in the transmission link
(including cascaded optical amplifiers). This emphasizes the
need to always consider the receiver model in a total optical
transmission systems perspective.
APPENDIX A
INCLUSION OF POISSON STATISTICS FROM PHOTODETECTION
So far, we have not accounted for the Poisson statistics,
inherent in the photodetection process, but have described the
influence of the shot noise from the detection by means of
a Gaussian noise model [cf. (7)]. A more rigorous descrip-
tion—where the shot noise influence is accounted for by means
of the Poisson statistics of the incoming light photons—is
discussed in [15], [16], [26], and [27]. The more rigorous
description has only been presented in explicit form for the
perfect integrate-and-dump lowpass filter impulse response
[15], [16]. The inclusion of the effect—and considering at the
same time a general lowpass filter impulse response—leads
to an intractable mathematical form for the Karhunen–Loeve
expansion of the resulting filtered compound Poisson stochastic
process [26], [27]. The form of the MGF may be given as
MGF (11)
where and are, for example, specified using Fred-
holm-type integral equations [ denotes the Fredholm de-
terminant], which are not in general solvable in convenient (an-
alytical) form such that approximate bounding techniques are
required for BER calculations [26], [27].
As an alternative it is in principle possible (see [27]) to
provide the general MGF in terms of special formulated
Karhunen–Loeve expansion for the double filtering and detec-
tion process, i.e., to give the MGF in a form equivalent to, for
instance, (6). The expansion eigenvalues and eigenfunctions
(in our formulation eigenvectors) are no longer constants but
do each have a dependence on the Laplace parameter [27].
JACOBSEN AND WILDHAGEN: GENERAL AND RIGOROUS WDM RECEIVER MODEL
This dependence is difficult to specify in a tractable analytic
form in the general case.
In [16], it is observed that the Poisson process using a pin
photodetector (i.e., for ) can be described
using the amplified optical signal plus the ASE noise and condi-
tioning the MGF on the number of photons which are incident
upon the photodiode. The conditioning takes into account the
Poisson statistics of the pin photodiode detection. We may apply
the same methodology in our MGF approach, as originally pre-
sented in Section III. In a Poisson statistical description, signal
and noise powers have to be specified in terms of the gener-
ated number of electrons. Thus, we have to introduce the mean
number of signal electrons which is generated over the bit-time
(12)
and the mean number of generated ASE noise electrons
(13)
The optical ASE noise power needs to be normalized such that
the eigenvalues read
(14)
and the thermal noise power has to be normalized such that
(15)
Following the presentation in [16] the conditioning leads to a
simple modification of the general MGF in (6) to account for
ASE noise and shot noise
MGF
(16)
where
(17)
The inclusion of thermal noise gives the final form
MGF MGF
(18)
Inclusion of the exact shot noise statistics in the general APD
case is a lot more complicated than in the pin diode case. The
reason for this is that the avalanche multiplication process in the
975
APD changes the statistical property of the shot noise generation
such that it is no longer a Poisson process—see, e.g., the detailed
description in [30]. It is doubtful whether the resulting MGF can
be specified in analytical form in the general APD case.
Neglecting the exact shot noise statistical properties (and as-
suming simple Gaussian statistics) in the photodetection process
is believed not to be of importance for a preamplified receiver
where the shot noise is in itself of minor importance and the
shot noise statistics is close to being Gaussian since large op-
tical signal and noise powers (i.e., many signal and noise pho-
tons) are incident upon the photodiode.
We have used the Gaussian approach for the shot noise pdf in
all practical evaluations presented in this paper.
APPENDIX B
CONSIDERATIONS ON A GENERAL ASE NSD SPECIFICATION
It is straightforward to generalize the previous description to
the case of an arbitrary ASE NSD at the photodiode. This modi-
fication of the description is of importance when single-channel
systems are considered, whereas the AWG DEMUX—with es-
sentially the same optical noise filter characteristic for all chan-
nels—is the appropriate design model in WDM system context.
First, we will note that the previous description applies in the
general case where the NSD is dominated by peaks specified by
the same autocorrelation function, but that it does not require
the peaks to be placed with the same frequency or wavelength
separation, i.e., the FSR does not enter the form of the MGF
in an explicit way. It is, however, required that the frequency
separation between the signal and the closest adjacent peak is
so large that only ASE within the signal peak beats with the
signal (and generates signal ASE noise).
In order to progress further with the general case, we will as-
sume that the NSD has a well-defined peak around the signal
wavelength and that this peak can be specified in terms of con-
nected impulse response , noise bandwidth [ say],
and autocorrelation function . The remainder part of the
NSD is specified by a number ( say) of peaks where each
one has its own impulse response, optical noise bandwidth, and
autocorrelation function.
In order to follow the previous form for the evaluation of the
MGF, we note that the noise influence from each of the NSD
peaks is given by a separate Karhunen–Loeve expansion that
defines eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Only the eigenvector de-
fined by peak number enters the final form of the MGF to-
gether with the diagonalization eigenvalues for all peaks. The
MGF then reads in accordance with (6)
MGF
(19)
976
and (7) gives the final MGF.
Note that the model for the effect of a general type of ASE
NSD may be changed as outlined in Appendix A to include the
Poisson statistics of the photodetection process in the pin case.
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