Impact of modulation bandwidth on multiplexing using principal modes in MMF links.

Multimode fibers (MMFs) are widely used for short fiber links. However, the data rates through MMFs is limited owing to modal dispersion. The so-called "principal modes" (PMs) permit transmission and multiplexing through the MMFs without modal dispersion for small modulation bandwidths. For larger modulation bandwidths, however, they lose their dispersion-free nature. In this paper, we model the impact of modulation bandwidth and mode coupling strength on the performance of PMs. We develop a simulator that characterizes the dispersion and cross-talk of the PMs of few-mode and large-core graded-index MMFs with mode-dependent losses (MDL). Simulations reveal that for fibers without MDL, for modulation frequencies beyond 10 GHz diminishes the PMs' frequency response by more than 1 dB for 100 m in large-core MMF links and 10 km few-mode fiber links. With MDL, simulations reveal that for modulation bandwidths beyond 2 GHz diminishes the frequency response by 3 dB for a 1 km few-mode fiber and by more than 4 dB for a 1 km large-core multimode fiber. While multiplexing using PMs in large-core MMFs with MDL, we find that for modulation bandwidths beyond 3 GHz, the cross-talk is 20 dB in 1 km large-core MMF links, thereby limiting system performance.