Long-Haul Transmission over Few-Mode Fibers with Space-Division Multiplexing

Space-Division Multiplexing (SDM) has been intensively proposed in recent years to overcome the capacity limitations of current single-mode fiber infrastructure and to increase the efficiency of optical transmission systems. Few-mode fibers offer the potential of transmitting several signals at the same wavelength over different modes of a single fiber core. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of using few-mode fiber based SDM systems for long-haul transmission. We analyze system limitations such as mode-dependent loss and Kerr-effect based nonlinear signal distortion for different modulation formats and distances up to 3500 km. We find that mode-dependent loss poses the major limitation in the analyzed transmission system, masking most intermodal nonlinear interactions.