Abstract

Increases in capacity demand continue to drive the need for improvements in transmission technologies. In the long and ultra-long-haul arena, system capacity and reach are key technical metrics. Advanced fibers are one of the most effective ways to attain high-capacity transmission for long reach systems while retaining enough margin to maintain robustness. Advanced fibers should support broadband operation, reduce nonlinear impairments, enable distributed gain and simplify networking. Here we describe fibers that incorporate dispersion management for practical implementation in high-capacity, long-haul systems. These advanced fibers have been developed to extend span length and system reach over a broad bandwidth by managing dispersion, reducing nonlinear impairments and optimizing the noise figure.

© 2002 Optical Society of America