Performance of WDM ring and bus networks in the presence of homodyne crosstalk

This paper examines the effects of coherent and incoherent homodyne crossta lk in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) ring and bus networks using rec onfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (OADM's). It is widely understood that incoherent homodyne crosstalk causes power penalties at the receivers in these networks. We show that coherent homodyne crosstalk causes a range of possible received powers, and that coherent and incoherent crosstalk to gether lead to a range of possible power penalties. A Monte Carlo simulatio n is used to examine the probability distribution of power penalties due to homodyne crosstalk under various conditions. We find that increasing the s witch and multiplexer crosstalk within each OADM, and increasing the number of WDM channels, all produce increased probabilities of large power penalt ies. However, the number of nodes through which a signal is transmitted doe s not affect the power penalty distribution.