Electronic Compensation Technique to Mitigate Nonlinear Phase Noise

Nonlinear phase noise, often called the Gordon-Mollenauer effect, can be compensated electronically by subtracting from the received phase a correction proportional to the received intensity. The optimal scaling factor is derived analytically and found to be approximately equal to half of the ratio of mean nonlinear phase noise and the mean received intensity. Using optimal compensation, the standard deviation of residual phase noise is halved, doubling the transmission distance in systems limited by nonlinear phase noise.