Lucent Technologies Inc.

David Wayne Peckham

William Alfred Reed

David Kalish

Arthur F Judy

Raymond Bradfield Kummer

Simultaneous dense WDM operation in both the 1310 nm and 1550 nm transparency windows of silica-based optical fiber, is enabled by a fiber design providing for nulled dispersion within a critically positioned wavelength range. Design provides for values of dispersion in both windows sufficiently low for desired per-channel bit rate, and, at the same time, sufficiently high to maintain effects of non-linear dispersion within tolerable limits for WDM operation. Fiber fabrication and system design are described.

Dual window WDM optical fiber communication

An optical fiber is disclosed that is suitable for use in wave-division-multiplex (WDM) systems served by Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. The fiber has a chromatic dispersion whose absolute magnitude is at least 0.8 ps/(nm-km) over the wavelength region 1530-1565 nm, and has a dispersion slope that is less than 0.05 ps/(nm.sup.2 -km). This optical fiber exhibits a loss that is less than about 0.20 dB/km and is relatively insensitive to bending; moreover, its effective area exceeds 50 .mu.m.sup.2. The optical fiber includes a core of transparent material having a maximum refractive index n.sub.1, and a layer of transparent cladding material on the outer surface of said core having a refractive index n.sub.2. The core includes an annular region of transparent material whose minimum refractive index, n.sub.3, is depressed with respect to n.sub.2. These indexes are constrained by the following equations: 0.50&lt;(n.sub.1 -n.sub.2)/n.sub.2 &lt;0.70; and -0.30&lt;(n.sub.3 -n.sub.2)/n.sub.2 &lt;-0.05.

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Norcross, GA, United States of America

David Wayne Peckham