As ROADMs (Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers) are becoming widely used in metro/core networks, distributed control of wavelength paths by extended GMPLS (Generalized MultiProtocol Label Switching) protocols has attracted much attention. For the automatic establishment of an arbitrary wavelength path satisfying dynamic traffic demands over a ROADM or WXC (Wavelength Cross Connect)-based network, precise determination of chromatic dispersion over the path and optimized assignment of dispersion compensation capabilities at related nodes are essential. This paper reports an experiment over in-field fibers where GMPLS-based control was applied for the automatic discovery of chromatic dispersion, path computation, and wavelength path establishment with dynamic adjustment of variable dispersion compensation. The GMPLS-based control scheme, which the authors called GMPLS-Plus, extended GMPLS's distributed control architecture with attributes for automatic discovery, advertisement, and signaling of chromatic dispersion. In this experiment, wavelength paths with distances of 24 km and 360 km were successfully established and error-free data transmission was verified. The experiment also confirmed path restoration with dynamic compensation adjustment upon fiber failure.

We experimentally studied the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) tolerance of an feed-forward equalizer (FFE) electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) IC in the absence of adaptive control, in 43-Gbit/s RZ-DQPSK transmission. Using a 3-tap FFE IC composed of InP HBTs, differential group delay (DGD) tolerance at a 2-dB Q penalty is shown to be extended from 25 ps to up to 29 ps. When a polarization scrambler is used, the tolerance is further extended to 31 ps. This value is close to the tolerance obtained with adaptive control, without a polarization scrambler.

We studied 10 Gbit/s-based time-spreading and wave-length-hopping (TS-WH) optical code division multiplexing (OCDM) using fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). To apply it to such the high bit rate system more than ten gigabit, two techniques are adopted. One is encoding with the maximum spreading time of 400 ps, which is four times as data bit duration, to encode without shortening chip duration. Another is encoder design. The apodized refractive index profile to the unit-gratings composing the encoder is designed to encode the pulses with 10-20 ps width at 10 Gbit/s rate. Using these techniques, 210 Gbit/s OCDM is demonstrated successfully. In this scheme, transmission distance is limited due to dispersion effect because the signal has wide bandwidth to assign a wavelength-hopping pattern. We use no additional devices to compensate the dispersion, in order to construct simple and cost-effective system. Novel FBG encoder is designed to incorporate both encoding and compensating of group delay among chip pulses within one device. We confirm the extension of transmission distance in the TS-WH OCDM from the demonstration over 40 km-long single mode fiber.

We implemented all-fiber delay line using linearly chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBG), which can be applicable for reflectometry or optical coherence tomography (OCT). Compared with the previously reported delay lines, the proposed fiber-based optical delay line has in principle novel advantages such as automatic dispersion cancellations without additional treatment and a gain in optical delay that is dependent on parameters of used CFBGs. Dispersion compensation in optical delay line (ODL), which is the indispensable problem in bulk optics based ODL, is demonstrated in fiber by using two identical but reversely ordered CFBGs. Amplified variable optical delay of around 2.5 mm can be obtained by applying small physical stretching of one of CFBGs in the proposed scheme. The operational principles of the all-fiber variable optical delay line, which are based on the distributed reflection characteristic of a CFBG employed, are described. Especially properties such as in-line automatic dispersion cancellation and amplified optical delay under strain are dealt. To demonstrate the properties of the proposed scheme, which is theoretical consequences under assumptions, an all-fiber optical delay line have been implemented using fiber optic components such as fiber couplers and fiber circulators. With the implanted ODL, the group delay and amplified optical delay length was measured with/without strain. The wavelength independent group delay measured within reflection bandwidth of the CFBG has proved the property of automatic dispersion cancellations in the proposed fiber delay line. Optical delay length of 2.5 mm was obtained when we apply small physical stretching to the CFBG by 100 µm and this is expressed by the amplification factor of 25. Amplification factor 25, which is less than theoretical value of 34 due to slipping of fiber in the fiber holder, shows that the proposed scheme can provide large optical delay with applying small physical stretching to the CFBG. We measure slide glass thickness to check the performance of the fiber delay line and the good agreement in measured and physical thickness of slide glass (1 mm thick) validates the potential of proposed delay line in the applications of optical reflectometry and OCT. We also discuss the problem and the solution to improve the performance.

We clarify the effectiveness of receiver-side compensation in offsetting fiber Bragg grating (FBG) dispersion induced-electrical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) degradation in a 10 Gb/s 8-channel wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) 6,400 km transmission system. The receiver-side compensation greatly improves the SNR degradation. The allowable accumulated FBG dispersion is -400 1000ps/nm for the worst arrangement, a single FBG at the transmitter, which is about half the accumulated fiber dispersion permissible with receiver-side compensation.

In this paper, we describe design considerations for inverse dispersion fiber (IDF) whose chromatic dispersion is designed to compensate for that of conventional 1.3 µm zero-dispersion single-mode fiber (SMF). We clarify the appropriate structural parameters for W-type, triple-clad-type and ring-type refractive index profiles to realize a hybrid transmission line composed of SMF and IDF taking into consideration the bending sensitivity and the available wavelength bandwidth that achieves an average chromatic dispersion of below 1 ps/nm/km in the 1.55 µm region. We also show that, when the launched power is less than 0 dBm/ch, a hybrid transmission line composed of SMF and IDF provides better 40 Gbps 8 ch dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transmission performance than a conventional dispersion compensation scheme with a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) module.

This paper presents a historical review of fiber technologies from the 1970s till now, focused on design, transmission characteristics, and reliability assurance of silica optical fibers. Discussion is made by dividing the period into two phases; the first phase closing nearly at the end of the 1980s and the second one starting at the same time. As for the first phase, we present designs of graded-index multimode fiber and single-mode fiber, and development of dispersion shifted fiber. Mechanical reliability assurance and loss increase phenomena due to hydrogen are also described. Development of an optical fiber amplifier triggered the start of the second phase. Due to the introduction of WDM transmission systems as well as demand on high bit-rate transmission, fiber dispersion and nonlinearity have become indispensable factors to be taken into consideration for system design and performance evaluation. We discuss novel non-zero dispersion shifted fibers and dispersion compensating fibers, developed to meet the requirements for long distance and high bit-rate WDM transmission systems. Finally, discussions are made on the future research and development items, which are necessary to realize anticipating photonic networks.

We demonstrated variable dispersion compensation using the Virtually Imaged Phased Array (VIPA) for a 40-Gbit/s dense-WDM transmission system. The large tunable range from -800 to +800 ps/nm in the entire C-band wavelength range and the high tunable resolution of 1 ps/nm was achieved by using a 3-dimensional mirror equipped with a stepping motor that we developed. We adopted the dispersion monitor of 40-GHz intensity extracted from the received 40-Gbit/s baseband signals, and verified that this dispersion monitoring method is applicable to nonlinear transmission by detecting the monitor peak. Using the VIPA variable dispersion compensator and the dispersion monitor, we demonstrated 1.28-Tbit/s (40-Gbit/s 32 ch) automatic dispersion compensation. As a result, we confirmed that only two VIPAs and one fixed dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) are needed to make our method applicable to the entire C-band for dense WDM 40-Gbit/s systems having a large transmission range of 80 km.

Two planar asymmetric coupled waveguides were fabricated by using different materials (InGaAsP and TiO2/Si) and tested as dispersion compensators (or pulse compressors). Compression of a more-than-10-ps chirped pulse is experimentally demonstrated by using an InGaAsP planar asymmetric coupled waveguide whose group velocity dispersion (GVD) is enhanced by structural optimization and is spectrally tuned to an input pulse as precisely as possible. A large polarization dependence of the pulse compression was also observed and indicates that the observed pulse compression results from dispersion compensation due to the GVD associated with supermodes. A new planar, asymmetric coupled waveguide with a large difference in refractive indices of the two waveguides was fabricated by using a combination of dielectric (TiO2) and semiconductor (Si) materials in order to obtain better GVD characteristics than semiconductor (for example, InGaAsP) asymmetric coupled waveguides. A preliminary experiment on pulse compression using the TiO2/Si planar asymmetric coupled waveguide was conducted. A 2.8-ps blue chirped pulse was compressed down to about 1 ps by a 1-mm-long waveguide (compression ratio: 0.375, which is better than those of the previous InGaAsP planar asymmetric coupled waveguides). This compression ratio agrees well with a theoretical result obtained by a numerical model based on a supermode's GVD.

Using the chirped grating with temperature control, we demonstrated the adaptive dispersion compensation at 40 Gbit/s RZ transmission. The simple monitoring of the 40 GHz frequency component enables us to automatic control of the adaptive dispersion compensator.

Using the chirped grating with temperature control, we demonstrated the adaptive dispersion compensation at 40 Gbit/s RZ transmission. The simple monitoring of the 40 GHz frequency component enables us to automatic control of the adaptive dispersion compensator.

In long-haul wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission systems, signals with shorter and longer wavelengths have self-phase modulation group-velocity-dispersion (SPM-GVD) penalty caused by to the dispersion slope even after the dispersion-compensation at the receiver has been optimized. As a countermeasure, we have already proposed both pre-compensation and post-compensation of chromatic dispersion at the transmitter and receiver for each channel. This method can decrease the channel variation of path-averaged chromatic dispersion along the transmission line, and it can improve the eye opening of the waveform after transmission. We investigated the optimized parameter of chromatic dispersion and chirping at the transmitter. The optimized pre-dispersion compensation parameter R was about 50%. The optimized chirping parameter α was about 3 when the signal wavelength was less than the mean zero-dispersion wavelength. In a single-channel, 5.3-Gbit/s NRZ signal transmission experiment over a 4,760-km straight line, this method decreased SPM-GVD penalty. In a 32-channel, 5.3-Gbit/s WDM transmission experiment over 9,879 km using a circulating loop, this method improved Q-factors for the 1st and 32nd channels by more than 1.5 dB.

The effectiveness of periodic dispersion compensation on single-channel 40 Gbit/s soliton transmission system was experimentally investigated. This technique requires just the dispersion compensation fibers and wideband optical filters in the transmission line, which has no difficulty to be used in the practical system. By using polarization-division-multiplexing together with periodic dispersion compensation, single-channel 40 Gbit/s transmission over 4700 km was demonstrated. Single-polarization 40 Gbit/s transmission experiments, which are more suitable for system implementation and compatible with WDM were also conducted. We investigated the transmission characteristics and pulse dynamics in different dispersion maps and in the optimized dispersion map, single-channel, single-polarization 40 Gbit/s transmission over 6300 km was successfully demonstrated.

RZ signal transmission in an anomalous region with periodic dispersion compensation is examined by a straight-line experiment in terms of the compensation ratio, the signal power, and the pulse width. The optimum condition enables single-channel 20-Gbit/s RZ signal and two-WDM-channel 20-Gbit/s signals (40-Gbit/s in total) to be transmitted over 5,520 km and 2,160 km, respectively. Numerical simulations with the assistance of a basic theory enables analysis of the experimental results. It is shown that the balance between the waveform distortion and the remaining Gordon-Haus jitter determines the optimum conditions to achieve the longest transmission distance. Excess dispersion compensation results in waveform distortion, while insufficient compensation causes a greater amount of remaining jitter. Moreover, spectrum deformation during propagation is experimentally and numerically clarified to have a large effect on the transmission performance, especially for WDM transmission.

This paper summarizes our recent efforts in modelocking Ti:sapphire lasers with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs). We present the shortest optical pulses ever generated directly from a laser. The modelocking build-up time (T BU) of 60 µs is, to our knowledge, the shortest reported for a passively modelocked KLM laser to date.

We study nonlinear pulse propagation in an optical transmission system with dispersion compensation. This is particularly important for designing an ultra-fast long-haul communication system in the next generation. There exists a quasi-stationary pulse solution in such a system whose width and chirp are rapidly oscillating with the period of dispersion compensation. This pulse also has several new features such as enhanced power when compared with the soliton case with a uniform dispersion and a deformation from the sech-shape of soliton. We use the averaging method, and the averaged equation to describe the core of the pulse solution is shown to be the nonlinear Schrodinger equation having a nontrapping quadratic potential. Because of this potential, a pulse propagating in such a system eventually decays into dispersive waves in a way similar to the tunneling effect. However in a practical situation, the tunneling effect is estimated to be small, and the decay may be neglected.

The reduction of Soliton-soliton interaction to stabilize the soliton pulse propagation in the periodic dispersion-compensated standard fiber system using optical bandpass filter has been investigated by numerical simulation, and experimentally 10 Gbit/s soliton transmission was realized without fine tuning dispersion management over 5700 km, using appropriate optical bandpass filters and polarization scrambler.

This paper proposes that a combination of pre-chirping and dispersion compensation is effective in suppressing the waveform distortion due to the self-phase modulation and the group-velocity dispersion in 10 Gb/s repeaterless transmission using 1.3-µm zero-dispersion single-mode fibers (SMF) operating at a wavelength of 1.55µm. The following results were obtained through simulation. 1) Setting the α-parameter of a LiNbO3 optical modulator negative (α1.0) gives a large tolerance of the launched power Pin. 2) For 90-km SMF transmission, the maximum Pin is obtained when the dispersion compensation ratio β is from 50% to 70%. 3) For the allowable β as a function of the transmission distance when a dispersion compensator is located in the receiver (post-compensation scheme), the lower limit of β is determined by the constant residual dispersion value, which agrees well with the dispersion tolerance without dispersion compensation. Our 90-km SMF transmission experiments using a LiNbO3 optical modulator and a dispersion compensating fiber (DCF) confirmed the simulation results regarding the optimum value of β and the large tolerance of the fiber launched power. Based on the above investigations, we achieved a 10-Gb/s repeaterless 140-km SMF transmission with α1.0 and post-compensation.