Abstract

Upgrading of nondispersion-shifted fiber (NDSF) systems by changing the operating wavelength to 1550 nm is quite attractive, and various dispersion-compensating techniques have been actively studied. Dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF) with broad bandwidth is the most promising medium,¹ and DCFs have just begun to be installed in actual systems. On the other hand, nonlinear effects, especially self-phase modulation (SPM), in DCF are seriously anticipated because of its small mode field diameter (MFD) and large nonlinear refractive index (n₂). In this paper, we explored the optimum design of the DCF based on actual performance of fabricated DCFs, taking SPM in DCF into account.

© 1996 Optical Society of America