We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, crosstalk between wavelengths in subcarrier-multiplexed (SCM) wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical communication systems. Crosstalk arises mainly from interactions between subcarriers on one wavelength and the optical carrier of another wavelength. In a dispersive fiber, crosstalk can be attributed to stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) combined with group velocity dispersion (GVD). We investigate the phase relationship between SRS-induced and XPM-induced crosstalks. Crosstalks induced by SRS and XPM add in the electrical domain and can interfere constructively or destructively. Experimental results show that the combined crosstalk level can be as high as 40 dBc after 25 km of SMF with two wavelengths and 18 dBm per wavelength of transmitted power. We propose two crosstalk countermeasures. The first countermeasure uses parallel fiber transmission. We show theoretically that both SRS-induced and XPM-induced crosstalks can be cancelled to the first order. We present an experimental demonstration of concept which has achieved 15 dB of crosstalk cancellation over 200 MHz. The second countermeasure uses optical carrier suppression. We show, theoretically and experimentally, that by suppressing the optical carrier, we can significantly reduce crosstalk while maintaining the same link budget and carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) at the receiver, 20 dB of crosstalk reduction over 2 GHz has been demonstrated experimentally.
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