Experimental investigation of the performance limitation of DPSK systems due to nonlinear phase noise

Spontaneous emission noise limits the capacity and range of photonic communications systems that use linear optical amplifiers. We consider here the question of phase detection in such systems. Amplitude-to-phase-noise conversion occurs owing to the nonlinear Kerr effect in the transmission fiber, resulting in optimal phase noise performance when the nonlinear phase shift of the system is approximately 1 rad. Error-free state-of-the-art systems that use phase detection at multigigabit rates are thereby limited to a range of a few thousand kilometers.