Theoretical Investigations of Third-Order Dispersion Term on Relative Intensity Noise for Dispersive Optical Communication System

In this article we present improved theoretical investigations into relative intensity noise (RIN), including the impact of a third-order dispersion term for dispervive optical communication systems. It has been shown that the third-order dispersion term has no impact on RIN even at high noise frequencies as reported by other authors, but with second-order dispersion compensation, the RIN can be dramatically reduced, thereby improving overall system performance. Further, the impact of fiber length and laser linewidth has been investigated for RIN. It has been shown that, as the fiber length increases, the value of RIN increases but the improvement over RIN with second-order dispersion compensation decreases. Also, with decrease in the value of linewidth, the RIN can be reduced to a great extent.