For data rates above 100Mb/s, multimode systems are generally modal dispersion rather than loss limited and some form of equalization is highly desired. We have investigated the performance of varius equalizers. Linear equalization yields a slight improvement in the performance of multimode optical fiber. The reason is the rapid falloff in the equivalent baseband frequency response of the channel, which results in considerable noise enhancement when linear equalization is used. However, non linear equalization provides superior performances that linear equalization when dispersion increases. Results from computations indicate that it may be posible to increase the bit error rate on dispersion limited optical channels, with a little power penalty and relative simple hardware.

Peer Reviewed