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A study is conducted to numerically analyze the possibility of achieving nanosecond delays, near the band edges of two-dimensional (2-D) photonic crystal waveguides. The results indicated that solution propagation in photonic crystal waveguides might open a new pathway to obtain compact optical delay lines and nonlinear elements in integrated form.

Fiber nonlinearities can degrade the performance of a wavelength-division multiplexing optical network. For high input power, a low chromatic dispersion coefficient, or low channel spacing, the most severe penalties are due to four-wave mixing (FWM). To compute the bit-error rate that is due to FWM noise, one must evaluate accurately the probability-density functions (pdf) of both the space and the mark states. An accurate evaluation of the pdf of the FWM noise in the space state is given, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, by use of Monte Carlo simulations. Additionally, it is shown that the pdf in the mark state is not symmetric as had been assumed in previous studies. Diagrams are presented that permit estimation of the pdf, given the number of channels in the system. The accuracy of the previous models is also investigated, and finally the results of this study are used to estimate the power limits of a wavelength-division multiplexing system. OCIS codes: 060.4230, 190.4380.