Optik 122 (2011) 15881593

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Optik
journal homepage: www.elsevier.de/ijleo

RWA scheme minimizing FWM effect in a wide area optical network

Gurpreet Singh a,1 , ManinderLal Singh a, , Harpreet Singh b,2
a
b

Department of Electronics Technology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India

Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 5 July 2010
Accepted 19 October 2010

Keywords:
FWM
WDM
Routing and wavelength assignment (RWA)

a b s t r a c t
In WDM based ber optic communication systems, nonlinearities deteriorate network performance. A
channel wavelength assignment scheme is required which not only minimize the FWM effect but also
the network delay produced during assignment process. Wavelength assignment schemes along with
impairment constraint based routing (ICBR) is proposed which minimizes the effect of four wave mixing
and network delay in WAN. Results have been obtained for 8 and 16 equally spaced channels and observed
that for equally spaced channels, in comparison with adjacent-next channel assignment scheme the
proposed channel assignment scheme gives improvement in the results in terms of lower power of FWM
products and lower number of in-band FWM products. Unlike existing channel assignment schemes the
algorithm is simple and there is no need to calculate the FWM effect for each channel before assigning
it hence reduction in network delay. Calculations have been obtained for point to point multi-ber link
of 1000 km, when power launched per channel is 1 mW for amplied wavelength convertible WAN with
amplier placement of 50 km apart.
2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In long-distance and high-speed wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) systems, ber dispersion and nonlinearities degrade
system performance and limit the distance and speed of data transmission. The most important nonlinear effects include stimulated
Raman scattering (SRS), four wave mixing (FWM), self- and crossphase modulation (SPM/CPM) [1]. The comparison and worse effect
of these nonlinearities has widely studied and it is found that crossphase modulation and four wave mixing are both the dominant
capacity limiting factors in WDM communication systems [14].
A clear strategy for cross-phase modulation (XPM) reduction
and four wave mixing is still under debate. Four wave mixing
is a process which generates new undesired signals at the other
frequencies by interaction of input signals with third order susceptibility of optical ber. These newly generated signals may degrade
the systems performance via crosstalk. Crosstalk has its worst
effect when a newly generated FWM component falls on in-band
input channel frequencies, because it is almost impossible to lter
these in band noises. The impact of FWM in WDM systems has been
studied extensively for coherent laser sources. When two coherent

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9855619626.

E-mail addresses: gpsingh154@gmail.com (G. Singh), mlsingh7@gmail.com (M.
Singh), Physics24singh@gmail.com (H. Singh).
1
Tel.: +91 98556196266.
2
Tel.: +91 9814569626.
0030-4026/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijleo.2010.10.010

Fig. 1. Two channel model of FWM.

signals are launched into a ber, FWM process generates signals at

the frequencies (2f1 f2 ) and (2f2 f1 ) [5] shown in Fig. 1.
A channel assignment scheme is affecting the performance of
the WDM network. So we have proposed a channel assignment
scheme and present it with impairment constraint based routing
(ICBR) to minimize the effect of FWM in a network. Throughout
in this paper we have studied only the effect of FWM over a single
multi-ber point to point link because the network under consideration is a wavelength convertible wide area network (WAN). Near
zero dispersion wavelength for equally spaced channels, the algorithm minimize the value of the PFWM (power of four wave mixing)
products and number of in-band FWM components responsible
for crosstalk except small band above zero dispersion wavelength.
Results are effective until the whole link is not at its full use.

G. Singh et al. / Optik 122 (2011) 15881593

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Fig. 2. WAN under consideration.

2. Theory
Assuming two input frequency components 1 and 2
which travel across the non-linear medium (ber optic cable),
interaction in a non linear medium via  (3) (third order
susceptibility) [6] creates two new frequency components at
3 = 1 (2 1 ) = 21 2 and 4 = 2 + (2 1 ) = 22 1
[5]. In general, for N wavelengths launched into a ber, the numbers
of generated mixing products or sidebands (excluding the original
wavelengths) is given as M = (N3 N2 )/2 [7].
For 2 channel FWM model, each channel pair <m, k> will generate two FWM noise power components, i.e. Pmmk and Pkkm where
m = 0 to N 1 and k = 0 to N 1 number of channels also k =
/ m and
m < k. So it shows that fmmk correspond to frequency components
f0,0,1 , f1,1,2 ,. . .f6,6,7 and fkkm , which correspond to frequency components of f1,1,0 , f2,2,1 ,. . .f7,7,6 for 8 channel system varying from 0 to 7
channels numbers. During simulations only these two FWM components have been studied for ease of understanding. The power
Pmmk is estimated from the Eq. (1.1):
Pmmk =

 2
2
 2 Pm Pm Pk eL Leff
D
9 mmk

(1.1)

where Pmmk is the FWM light power at frequency fmmk = fm + fm fk.

Pm and Pk are input light power of fm and fk frequencies,  represents
dependence of FWM efciency on the phase-mismatching, Dmmk is
the degeneracy factor, which takes values of D = 3 for m =
/ k. The
terms of  and are, respectively, the nonlinear and attenuation
coefcients of the ber. L is the ber length and Leff denotes the
effective length in amplied network [8], given by Eq. (1.2):
Leff =

1 el

L
l

(1.2)

where l is the inter-amplier distance. The term of  can be calculated by Eq. (1.3) [9]:
=

2n2
Aeff

(1.3)

where n2 , Aeff and  are the ber nonlinear refractive index, the
effective ber core area and the vacuum wavelength, respectively.
The FWM efciency is given by Eq. (1.4) [9]:
=

2
2
+ 2

1 + 4eL sin2 (, L/2)

(1 eL )


(1.4)

Fig. 3. Proposed algorithm to assign wavelength over multi-ber link.

The ber chromatic dispersion Dc and channel frequency separation both of them affect the efciency of the newly generated wave
in the FWM process via phase matching factor given in Eq. (1.5)
[10,11]:
 =

 22 
0


(fi fk )(fi fk )

Dc +

 2  
0

2C

dDC
d


[(fi fo )(fj fo )]

(1.5)
where C is the speed of light in vacuum and 0 is a zero dispersion
wavelength.
3. Proposed RWA algorithm
In Fig. 2 we have assumed an amplied multi-ber wavelength
convertible WAN having equally spaced channels per ber with
amplier placements 50 km apart. The input power launched per
channel is same for all the channels, i.e. 1 mW.
Table 1
Parameters values used for calculations.
Parameter name

Values and units

Zero dispersion wavelength

Zero dispersion slop
Fiber attenuation
Power per channel
Nonlinear refractive index
Number of wavelengths
Point to point distance b/w two nodes under study
Effective area (Aeff )

1341 nm
0.009 ps/nm2 km
0.22 dB/km
1 mW
3 1020 m2 /W
8 and 16
1000 km
50 1012 m2

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G. Singh et al. / Optik 122 (2011) 15881593

Fig. 4. For 8 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 7. When initial channel below zero dispersion wavelength at
1338 nm.

Fig. 5. For 8 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 7. When initial channel at zero dispersion wavelength of 1341 nm.

Fig. 6. For 8 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 7. When initial channel above zero dispersion wavelength at
1345 nm.

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Fig. 7. For 8 channels, number of in-band FWM components vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 7.

It is well known that, the power of degenerated FWM components depends on the channel spacing and the input power per
channel. To minimize the effect of FWM in equally spaced channels
and to minimize the network delay due to channel assignment process, it is important to assign the channels in orderly manner so that
the next assigned channel should remains at higher inter-channel
separation and known before assigning it. A fair comparison of two
wavelengths assignment schemes, adjacent-next channel assignment scheme [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and proposed channel assignment
scheme [0,7, 3, 5, 6, 4, 2, 1] has been studied in terms of PFWM and
number of FWM in-band components, that are responsible for the
crosstalk for N equally spaced channels. While in case of 16 equally
spaced channels for adjacent-next channel and proposed channel
assignment schemes are [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15] and [0,15, 7, 11, 13, 14, 12, 9, 10, 8, 3, 5, 6, 4, 2, 1], respectively.
For calculation, the pair of wavelengths generate maximum PFWM
than all the other possible pairs considered for plotting. In case of
considering only two channels at a time the powers of two FWM
components are derived from Eq. (1.1). For 2 channel FWM model,
each channel pair <m, k> will generate two FWM noise power components, i.e. Pmmk and Pkkm where m = 0 to N 1 and k = 0 to N 1
number of channels.

The algorithm given in Fig. 3 is quite simple as there is no need

to calculate PFWM before assigning next channel. When a call arises
at node N1 to establish a path between node pair N1, N2, the
algorithm search for the shortest path using impairment constraint
based routing [12]. Then, it calculates all the idle wavelengths on
the shortest multi-ber path and selects the ber with lower index
of next assign wavelength. Where index stands for channel number. For example the ber 1 has 4 wavelengths busy and ber 2
has 3 wavelengths busy therefore ber 2 has lower assignment
index than ber 1. After calculating the lower assignment index
of the ber, assign the next wavelength according to the proposed
wavelength assignment scheme
4. Simulation results and discussion
Simulation has been performed in MATLAB for the two different
wavelength assignment schemes near zero dispersion wavelength
of 1341 nm. During simulations the parameters given in Table 1
have been considered.
A fair comparison between two channel assignment schemes
is given here, i.e. for old (the adjacent-next channel assignment scheme) and new (proposed channel assignment scheme).

Fig. 8. For 16 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 15. When initial channel below zero dispersion wavelength at
1338 nm.

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G. Singh et al. / Optik 122 (2011) 15881593

Fig. 9. For 16 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 15. When initial channel at zero dispersion wavelength at 1341 nm.

For 8 and 16 channels system results have been obtained for

three cases when the initially assigned channel wavelength
(i.e. very rst wavelength) is at zero dispersion wavelength,
below zero dispersion wavelength, and above zero dispersion wavelength for 25, 50 and 100 nm of equal inter-channel
spacings.
For 8 and 16 equally spaced channels when the very rst
assigned channel wavelength is below or at channel wavelength
of zero dispersion wavelength, it has been noticed form results
given in Figs. 49 that in contrast to the adjacent-next channel
assignment (old) scheme, the proposed channel assignment (new)
scheme shows lower values of the degenerated FWM components
at each channel spacing. The results are even more pronounced for
higher channel spacings values 50 and 100 GHz. While for 25 and
50 GHz channel spacings in Figs. 6 and 10 when the initial channel wavelength is above zero dispersion wavelength at 1345 nm
the proposed method remains effective till 4th channel assigned.
But for 100 GHz it starts showing its ineffectiveness beyond 3rd
channel.
For the case of equally spaced channels, the in-band FWM components remain independent to the position of initially assigned
channel wavelength and channel spacing. Figs. 7 and 11 show the

in-band four wave mixing components remain at their lowest values for the proposed scheme until no spare wavelength is left to
use. This signicant reduction in the numbers of the in-band FWM
components will reduce the FWM effect, which further leads to
decrease in BER.
While simulating these results at different initial wavelength it
has observed that the proposed scheme starts showing its effective results again beyond 1353 nm wavelength while for the band
13431353 nm we can say that the old scheme remains effective
for 100 GHz channel spacing.
5. Conclusion
In WDM all optical network FWM is the dominant nonlinearity, which not only limits the capacity of the network but also
makes communication unreliable. A RWA algorithm is proposed to
minimize effect of FWM in case of equally spaced channels in wavelength convertible WAN. The algorithm based on proposed channel
assignment scheme will not only minimize the power of FWM components but also minimize the number of in-band (channel spectral
width) PFWM components. The proposed scheme remains effective
over the whole band-width except 13431353 nm band particu-

Fig. 10. For 16 channels, PFWM components of old and new scheme vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 15. When initial channel above zero dispersion wavelength at
1345 nm.

G. Singh et al. / Optik 122 (2011) 15881593

1593

Fig. 11. Number of in-band FWM components vs. assigned channel number from 0 to 15.

larly for 100 GHz channel spacing. The algorithm is quite simple
as compare to the other FWM-aware algorithms [9] because there
is no need to calculate the value of power of FWM components for
different wavelengths before assign it hence reduce the complexity
and network delay due to channel assignment process.
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