Performance Comparison of Long-Haul Direct Detection Optical Transmission Systems Adopting Dispersion Management with Pre-Compensation

Abstract This article reports a numerical investigation on the performance of return-to-zero intensity-modulated direct detection, return-to-zero differential phase shifting key, and return-to-zero differential quadrature phase shifting key systems operating in G.652 links adopting dispersion management. Also illustrated are the role and benefits of pre-compensation. For such an aim, the influence of the non-linear Kerr impairments on the in-phase and quadrature components of the signal are studied, along with the consequent degradations in terms of the Q-factor for the different modulation formats. Such an investigation is applied to evaluate the maximum propagation distances for 40- and 80-Gb/s capacities.