Investigation of power penalty in WDM systems for dispersion managed fibers

Power penalty severely limits performance of wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) systems due to nonlinear effects. The system performance degradation due to power penalty is investigated analytically. Then a 16 channel WDM system is simulated. Flattened and common dispersion managed fiber (DMF) profiles (square and triangle) are compared. It is also investigated an optimum dispersion compensation profile obtained using the Volterra series transform function (VSTF). Finally the best DMF structure is suggested based on the result of the present analysis and simulation.