Dispersion compensating optical fiber, and communication system comprising the same

摘要

Known dispersion-compensating (DC) optical fibers typically are sensitive to small changes in fiber parameter (e.g., fiber diameter and/or core refractive index), and thus are difficult to manufacture. The disclosed DC fibers (21) are relatively insensitive to small departures from the nominal fiber parameters, and are therefore more manufacturable. Exemplarily, the nominal refractive index profile of a DC fiber is selected such that the fiber supports LP01 and LP02 (and typically one or more further higher order modes), and the dispersion is substantially all in LP02. The total dispersion is more negative than -200 ps/nm · km over a relatively wide wavelength range. The nominal refractive index profile typically comprises a refractive index "nng" (13) that is spaced from the fiber core (11).