Abstract

Dispersion compensation techniques designed to upgrade 1.3 μm single mode fibres (SMF) for use in 1.55 μm optical communication systems are of great current interest. Several groups have utilised dispersion compensating fibre with large normal dispersion at 1550 nm to equalise the anomalous dispersion in SMF for lightwave system experiments [1,2]. In our research we are applying these techniques to achieve dispersion equalisation for femtosecond pulse transmission, for which not only the dispersion but also the dispersion slope must be compensated [3]. By using a special dispersion compensating fibre (DCF) with favourable dispersion characteristics [4], we demonstrate nearly dispersion-free propagation of ~60-fsec pulses over >40 m of fibre. Our experiments demonstrate the use of all fibre dispersion compensation systems at pulsewidths nearly 7 times shorter and compression ratio 5 times larger than those reported previously [5]. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of spectral interferometry [6] to characterise the phase response of our near dispersion free fibre link.

© 1996 Optical Society of America