Abstract

The development of erbium-doped-fiber amplifiers has made the wavelength region around 1550 nm the operating window of choice for high-capacity, long-distance lightwave systems. If the potential benefits of this development are to be fully realized, fiber chromatic dispersion must be dealt with, either by using dispersion-shifted fiber with zero-dispersion wavelength near 1550 nm or by using conventional fiber with some form of dispersion compensation. Although the former approach is clearly the more attractive one, it is not an option for already- installed fiber networks composed of conventional fiber. Given the vast amount of conventional fiber that has already been installed and the anticipated need for future upgrades, there is considerable interest in finding practical dispersion-compensation techniques.

© 1993 Optical Society of America