Optical coherent systems have an optimum transmission rate, at which some mitigation of non-linear effects spontaneously takes place.

The phenomenon occurs at a Baud rate which is neither the one of serial systems (28-32 GBaud) nor that of OFDM systems (in the hundreds of MBaud per subcarrier). It actually occurs between 2 and 8 GBaud, depending on system parameters. The higher the dispersion, the lower the optimum rate and, typically, the greater the potential mitigation.

In our OFC 2015 paper:

• we show that the EGN model (download EGN model paper at the bottom of this page) provides an accurate estimate of the effect
• we provide a simple formula for the value of the optimum Baud rate
• validate all findings through extensive simulations
• show that the potential nonlinearity mitigation may lead to maximum reach gains of 10% to 25%, depending on system parameters and modulation format

Read about it in our accepted OFC 2015 oral paper. You can download its pre-print version by clicking the second attachment at the bottom of this page.