Information capacity of nonlinear wavelength division multiplexing fiber optic transmission line

We report the first determination of the impact of optical nonlinearities o nthe information capacity of a fiber optic transmission channel. By modelin g interchannel interference in a nonlinear wavelength division multiplexing transmission system as multiplicative Gaussian noise, we show that the inf ormation capacity is reduced below the Shannon capacity of the linear commu nications channel. For systems of practical interest, this imposes a fundam ental limitation on the spectral efficiency of optical data transmission. ( C) 2001 Academic Press.