Equalization-Enhanced Phase Noise in Mode-Division Multiplexed Systems

When an electronic equalizer is used to compensate the modal dispersion in a mode-division multiplexed system, receiver phase noise induces interference to the multi-input- multi-output (MIMO) receiver. Based on the statistics of the modal dispersion in the strong coupling regime, the interference variance is evaluated analytically based on an exact model, a semicircle asymptotic for large number of modes, and a first-order approximation.