Dispersion Compensation Configuration Applying a Combination of EDC and Tunable-ODC for Extended $L$-Band WDM Transmission

Abstract

We propose effective polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) and chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation configuration for practical use in the field, taking into consideration the system cost and the field condition such as the CD changes due to fiber temperature dependence or transmission route change, and rapidly fluctuate state of polarization of the signal lightwave. Our configuration combines electric dispersion compensators (EDCs) with fixed taps in each channel with a multichannel tunable optical dispersion compensator (T-ODC) that can simultaneously compensate all channels' accumulated CD. We demonstrate widely extended <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">L</i> -band 43-Gb/s-based wavelength-division-multiplexing transmission over 450 km using our dispersion compensation configuration, and obtain effectiveness that the PMD penalty is suppressed by 2 dB at a differential group delay of 33 ps by using the EDC and that the CD penalty is improved by about 2 dB at the accumulated CD change of +/- 30 ps/nm by using T-ODC and EDC.