A Comparison between Electrical and Optical Chromatic Dispersion Compensation in Wavelength Divison Multiplexing Network Regarding to Electrical Pulse Shapes

Problem statement: Besides of some impairment that has been inherited form single channel, specialists confronted with new obstacles in WDM implementation which bared them for achieving desired performance. Although Chromatic Dispersion (CD) exists in single channel too, it can worsens new nonlinearities which are occurs just in WDM systems. So CD compensation in WDM is even more vital than single channel one. Approach: A wide range of optical and electrical CD compensation techniques have been represented. In this study we evaluate the efficiency of feed Forward-Decision Feedback Equalizer (FFE-DFE) as one type of electrical compensation methods and Dispersion Compensation Fiber as one type of optical compensator. Also we will look how electrical pulse shapes induced by pulse generator in transmitter, can impact on the performance of the either optical or electrical compensations. Results: After implementation, it was revealed that overall optical compensation with DCF gives us better performance than electrical equalizer and NRZ is more vulnerable than two other pulse shapes. Conclusion: Chromatic compensation was implemented with different pulse shapes and RZ pulse shape with optical compensation showed the best performance.