Study of the Gordon-Mollenauer Effect and of the Optical-Phase-Conjugation Compensation Method in Phase-Modulated Optical Communication Systems

Optical phase-modulated systems are promising candidates for the development of ultrahigh-bit-rate transmission links, thanks to their high spectral efficiency and increased tolerance to fiber-optic nonlinearities. However, their implementation was considerably slowed down by theoretical studies, suggesting that the transmission performance can be severely hindered by nonlinear phase noise (the so-called Gordon-Mollenauer effect). The simulations presented here show that, in realistic systems (including nonlinearity, dispersion, and attenuation), Gordon-Mollenauer noise does not represent the main source of signal distortions. We demonstrate that all nonlinear impairments can be efficiently compensated by optical phase conjugation, independent of system characteristics. The combination of optical-phase-conjugation with phase-modulation formats could enable ultrahigh-transmission-capacity and easy embedded-link upgrading.