318 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 11, No.

5 / May 1986

Effect of frequency chirping on the performance of optical

communication systems
Govind P. Agrawal
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey

M. J. Potasek
AT&T Engineering Research Center, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Received December 18, 1985; accepted February 10, 1986

The effect of frequency chirping on the performance of optical communication systems is analyzed theoretically
using a simple but realistic model for the chirped pulses emitted by a directly modulated semiconductor laser. The
effect of pulse-edge sharpness is investigated by considering the propagation of super-Gaussian chirped pulses in a
dispersive single-mode fiber. The results are presented using the parameter values appropriate for a 1.55-/im
optical communication system employing conventional silica fibers and are in qualitative agreement with the

OA+
reported experimental observations.

Current interest in high-bit-rate optical communica- If the power-dependent nonlinear effects are ig-
tion systems requires the propagation of short optical nored, the propagation of optical pulses in single-
pulses in optical fibers. As pulses get shorter with an mode fibers is governed by8
increase in the bit rate, chromatic dispersion in single-
mode fibers becomes increasingly more important and ( *A) - 1 0(2) a2A = 0, (1)
plays a detrimental role in limiting the performance of
light-wave transmission systems.1'2 For conventional where A is the complex amplitude of the pulse enve-
silica fibers, considerable dispersion (-15-20 psec lope, -y is the amplitude-absorption coefficient, and
nm- 1 km-') occurs in the vicinity of the 1.55-,Mmwave- = d2 ,3/dc2 accounts for the group-velocity disper-
M(2)
length where the fiber loss is minimum. For such sion. For conventional silica fibers, p3(2) is negative
1.55-Mmcommunication systems, the modulation-in- near the loss-minimum wavelength of 1.55 um (anom-
duced frequency chirping becomes important since it alous dispersion). Owing to its linearity, Eq. (1) has
increases the pulse spectral width over its Fourier- the general solution
transform-limited value. Attempts have been made
to estimate theoretically the importance of the chirp
effects by considering pulse propagation in single-
mode dispersive fibers.3 - 6 However, the results are
A(z, ,) = e-z J A(0, w)exp[i( r + 2 (3(2)W2z)] dw,
(2)
often obtained using Gaussian pulses with a linear
frequency chirp. In practice, the optical pulses are far where
from being Gaussian and have much sharper leading
and trailing edges. Further, the time-resolved mea-
surements7 of the pulse spectrum have shown that the
A(0, co)= 2- J A(0, r) exp(-iwr)dr (3)

frequency chirping in directly modulated semiconduc-
tor lasers occurs mainly near the leading and trailing
edges. As a consequence, the linear chirp model used
in previous work3 -6 may not be suitable to account for
the chirp effects.
In this Letter we consider the pulse propagation in
dispersive fibers using a more realistic model for the
temporal shape and the frequency chirp associated
with the incident pulse. A generalization of the
Gaussian model (the super-Gaussian model) provides
pulses whose rise time is controllable. At the same
time, it leads to a description of frequency chirping
that is consistent with the experimental observations.7
Our results show that the dispersive effects depend
critically on the sharpness of leading and trailing
edges. We discuss how the pulse shape is affected
during propagation and compare the results obtained
using Gaussian and super-Gaussian models.
and A(0, r) is the initial pulse amplitude at the launch
plane z = 0.
The integrals appearing in Eqs. (2) and (3) can be
evaluated analytically for a Gaussian pulse with linear
chirp. However, as mentioned earlier, such a form
does not model the experimental situation well. We
have found that most of the deficiencies of the Gauss-
ian model can be overcome by adopting the super-
Gaussian model wherein the initial pulse amplitude is
given by
A(0, r) = AOexp[- 1 (1 - ia) (r/)i2m]. (4)
Here AOis the peak amplitude, a is the half-width (at
lie intensity point), and a is a chirp parameter. In the
case of directly modulated semiconductor lasers, a is
often referred to as the linewidth enhancement fac-

0146-9592/86/050318-03$2.00/0 1986, Optical Society of America


tor,9 and its estimated numerical value for 1.5 5-Am
InGaAsP lasers is about 5.
The parameter m in Eq. (4) is an adjustable parame-
ter of the super-Gaussian model. For m = 1 we recov-
er the case of linearly chirped Gaussian pulses.3 -6 For
higher values of m, the pulse-intensity profile becomes
increasingly square shaped with sharp leading and
trailing edges. If we define the rise time -r, as the
duration during which the intensity increases from 10
to 90%of its peak value, from Eq. (4) we obtain
Tr = (ln 9)a/2m i- u/m. (5)
The parameter m can thus be chosen to correspond to
a predetermined value of the rise time. We choose m
= 3 for numerical illustrations, a choice consistent
with typical rise-time values.
The phase profile in Eq. (4) can be used to deter-
mine the transient frequency chirp
Av(,r) = -
1Av = =_
0k
1 __ _=- _ ma_ /2m-1 =_ a d(nP),
4
2rar 27ra~~r ,7r dt
(6)
where P = IAl2
is the modulated optical power. The
last equality shows that our model is consistent with
the rate equations.5 For positive values of a, the chirp
is positive (blue shift) near the leading edge and be-
comes negative (red shift) near the trailing edge, as
observed experimentally7 in directly modulated semi-
conductor lasers. More importantly, for a super-
Gaussian pulse the chirping occurs mainly in the vicin-
ity of the leading and trailing edges (Ir I 1 a), a fea-
ture consistent with the experimental observations.7
Another important characteristic of the super-Gauss-
ian model is that the frequency chirp Av increases with
a decrease in the pulse rise time. If we consider the
frequency shift Avm near lr-I = a, Eqs. (5)' and (6) give
the remarkably simple expression
Avm = ma/(27ra) !a/(27r Tr). (7)
Based on these considerations, it appears that Eq. (4)
models the chirped pulses emitted by a directly modu-
lated semiconductor laser quite realistically with the
exception of relaxation oscillations. Since the relax-
ation oscillations are often heavily damped for buried-
heterostructure-type semiconductor lasers, the use of
Eq. (4) is reasonable for the analysis of the chirp ef-
fects and is expected to provide the results more accu-
rately than the previously used Gaussian model.3 -6
We have used Eqs. (2)-(4) to study the propagation
of super-Gaussian chirped pulses in single-mode fibers
at 1.55 Am by using a typical value p(2) = -20.4 psec2
km-l that corresponds to a group-velocity dispersion
D = 16 psec nm-1 km-'. We chose the full width (at
lie point) 2a-= 250 psec after assuming a bit rate of 4
Gbit sec-1. In contrast to a linearly chirped Gaussian
pulse,3 this pulse shape changes during propagation.
Figure 1' compares the initial shape with those ob-
tained after 50 and 100 km of propagation inside the
fiber for both unchirped (a = 0) and chirped (a = 5)
pulses. In general, the pulse broadens with propaga-
tion and develops tails. The broadening is worse for
chirped pulses, as is evident from the long tails appear-
ing in Fig. 1(b). Note that the full'width at half-
May 1986 / Vol. 11, No. 5 / OPTICS LETTERS 319
1.25
0.75
0.5
0.25
TIME (psec)
(a)
z(km)
I
-100 - = 125 psec
-0
50 a \
m 3
t5
0.75
(0
rz 0.5
0.25
0
-400 -200 0 200 400
TIME (psec)
(b)
Fig. 1. Variation of pulse shape with the fiber length for
unchirped (a = 0) and chirped (a = 5) super-Gaussian
pulses. Note the formation of long tails in the case of
chirped pulses.
maximum is not a useful measure of pulse broadening
for such distorted pulses. We have therefore used the
root-mean-square (rms) width as a measure of pulse
broadening.
Figure 2 shows the broadening factor (the final-to-
initial rms-width ratio) for super-Gaussian pulses (m
= 3) as a function of the fiber length for'three values of
the chirp parameter a. The dashed lines show for
comparison the results for a linearly chirped Gaussian
pulse (m = 1). A super-Gaussian pulse broadens fast-
er than a Gaussian pulse with an increase in the fiber
length, and the situation becomes worse for chirped
pulses. The increase in broadening is due to sharper
leading and trailing edges, which broaden the spec-
trum of super-Gaussian pulses. For finite values of a,
frequency chirping leads to an additional spectral
broadening that further increases the pulse rms-width
ratio with propagation.
An important question from the system viewpoint is
how the details of pulse shape and frequency chirping
affect system performance. An important measure of
the performance of a light-wave-transmission system
is the bit rate-distance (BD) product or the maximum
fiber length that can be used at a given bit rate B.
Clearly this length depends on the system criterion
pertinent to tolerable pulse broadening. As an illus-
tration, Fig. 3 shows the dependence of the maximum
fiber length (and the corresponding BD product) on
the chirp parameter a after assuming that a pulse
broadening of at most 20%can be tolerated. For com-
pleteness, negative values of a are also allowed for.
Physically, they correspond to the case wherein Av
increases with r.
320 OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 11, No. 5 / May 1986
2
a
2 125 psec
1.8 - SUPERGAUSSIAN
1.6
0~
0 20
Fig. 2. Broadening of a 125-psechalf-width pulse with the
fiber length for three values of the chirp parameter aeusing D
= 16 psec nm-1 km-'. Solid and dashed curves correspond
to super-Gaussian (m = 3) and Gaussian (m = 1) pulse
shapes.
1000
500
(0
I-
::
M
3 100
A1:
rr
W
---
-
GAUSSIAN
SUPERGAUSSIAN
0
-6 -4
l l
Fig. 3. Variation of maximum fiber length (corresponding
to a 20% pulse-broadening level) with chirp parameter a.
The other parameter values are identical to those used in
Fig. 2. Solid and dashed curves compare the super-Gauss-
ian and Gaussian pulse shapes. The BD product is shown
on the right-hand ordinate scale assuming a bit rate of 4 Gbit
sec'1 (a = 125 psec).
We note from Fig. 3 that the system performance
depends critically on the numerical value and the sign
of the chirp parameter a. In particular, the BD prod-
uct is larger for negative values of a since such a
chirped pulse undergoes an initial contraction in the
anomalous dispersion regime. This qualitative fea-
ture is well known from the theory of linearly chirped
Gaussian pulses3 - 6; under appropriate conditions, the
pulse contraction has been experimentally ob-
0 lasers, how-
served.' "1' For 1.55-Mm semiconductor
ever, the chirp profile is generally such that the posi-
tive values of a are relevant.7 As is evident from Fig.
3, the frequency chirp then plays a detrimental role in
limiting the performance of such optical communica-
tion systems. Note, however, that the situation would
reverse if the fiber-dispersion parameter 1(2) > 0 (nor-
mal dispersion).
It should be stressed that the results shown in Fig. 3
were obtained using an ad hoc criterion on the rms
pulse width and should be used with care when apply-
ing to actual transmission experiments. They are
nonetheless indicative of the qualitative trend: the
BD product decreases with an increase in a and with a
decrease in the pulse rise time. For unchirped pulses
a5
(a = 0), Fig. 3 shows that the 4-Gbit sec-1 transmission
GAUSSIAN
can be accomplished for fiber lengths as long as 200
km. This is in agreement with the recent 117-km
transmission experiments that made use of external
modulation to avoid frequency chirping. For directly
~~~~~~~~- modulated semiconductor lasers Fig, 3 predicts a fiber
length of only 18 km if we accept the value a = 5. This
conclusion is in apparent contradiction with a trans-
mission experiment' 3 in which a fiber length of 103 km
was used. To resolve the discrepancy, we note from
Eq. (7) that for parameter values used in Fig. 3, the
100
40 60 80
frequency chirp APvm 20 GHz. In Ref. 13, the semi-
FIBER LENGTH (km)
conductor laser was biased considerably above thresh-
old to reduce APm below 10 GHz. Since the pulse
intensity in the off state was about 1/3 of the peak
value, the results presented here are not applicable.
To conclude, we have used a simple but realistic
model for the chirped pulses emitted by a directly
modulated semiconductor laser. The model is used to
investigate the performance of 1.55-Mimoptical com-
I munication systems by considering the pulse propaga-
tion in a linear dispersive medium. Particular atten-
103 Z
E
tion is paid to the effects of frequency chirping and of
0 edge sharpness (rise and fall times). For characteris-
0 tic chirp profiles commonly encountered in semicon-
i5 ductor lasers, the chirp plays a detrimental role when
lW10
the light-wave system is operated in the anomalous
5
dispersion regime. A rough estimate based on the
50 t
choice a = 5 is that the BD product would be limited to
-2
l Ll l
0 2 4 6
100 Gbit km sec'1 (see Fig. 3) if deeply modulated
CHIRP PARAMETER, a pulses (with negligible off-state intensity) are used.
The elimination of chirp using external modulation
can improve this value by an order of magnitude.
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