Fiber Based Dispersion Compensation

In three well-organized sections, this book offers the first detailed survey of dispersion compensating fibers. The sections outline Conventional Dispersion Compensating Fiber, including a chapter on modeling dispersion in optical fibers; Alternative and Emerging Technologies, including control of dispersion in photonic crystal fibers; and Systems experiments and Impacts, featuring a survey of systems experiments demonstrating Dispersion Compensation Technologies.Dispersion management is a critical design criterion that characterizes the performance of an optical network, and has impacted almost every aspect of the physical layer of an optical transmission line. The past 10 years have seen an explosion in the variety of device effects exploited to obtain optimal performance from dispersion compensators, and this is the first book that deals exclusively with this technology. It starts with an exposition on the fundamental physics underlying dispersion and its effects on optical pulses, followed by at least one chapter devoted to each of the fiber-based dispersion-compensating devices that have either been deployed or are considered as serious candidates for future networks. The final section of this book then describes the systems-level impact of these devices, hence providing a one-stop reference for all aspects of optical-communication-network design pertaining to dispersion-management. Each chapter is written by the leading experts in the field, drawn from both academia as well as industry.