Effect on WDM due to Cross Phase Modulation

Cross phase modulation (XPM) is known as the phenomenon that the variations of intensity of one optical signal can change the refractive index of the fiber (Kerr effects), and modulate the phase of other optical signals co-propagating in the same fiber .We compare the impact of Q-factor, BER and timing jitter due to cross-phase modulation (XPM) in a wavelength-divisionmultiplexed system for different length of fiber. We then examine the commonly used method of estimating XPM system penalties from the amplitude of XPM-induced intensity modulation of a continuous-wave (CW) probe. Our study indicates that this approach does indeed provide a good estimate of XPM system penalty by comparing simulations.