Abstract

Difficulties in predicting concatenated bandwidths introduce large uncertainties in engineering highbit-rate optical communication routes. Much of that uncertainty arises from the bandwidth measurements on the links making up the concatenation. In particular, fibers with non-Gaussian output pulses present severe measurement difficulties leading often to results (3-dB bandwidths) subject to large errors.¹ A possible solution to such bandwidth measurement problems, and hence an aid in predicting concatenated bandwidth, involves fitting a Gaussian to the measured fiber transfer function and obtaining the 3-dB value from that fitted curve instead of from the transfer function itself. As pointed out in a recent study,² conventional 3-dB bandwidth values can vary greatly with subtle changes in measurement conditions for fibers with multipeaked output pulses; those variations are greatly reduced when the 3-dB values from the Gaussian fit are used.

© 1983 Optical Society of America