Analysis and simulation of mode partition noise in distributed feedback lasers

Flooring of BER curves due to mode partition noise has been observed in DFB lasers in which mode partition noise (MPN) was not expected to be significant.1 In work to be published separately, 2 Miller has described accurately, for the first time, we believe, the injection laser output in conditions in which MPN may occur. It was shown quantitatively how the incidence and nature of power appearing in a sidemode are influenced by the internal laser parameters and by the shape and width of the drive current. We describe here how the output of the laser in that earlier work influences the error rate in a system which includes wavelength dispersion.