Microwave tunable compensation of chromatic dispersion in optical fiber communication systems

Abstract

In the present project, we aim to study fiber chromatic dispersion compensation, by exploiting tunable predistortion realized in the microwave domain at the transmitter side. In particular we design and realize a chirped delay line centered at 20GHz and with a bandwidth of 20GHz, with a group delay able to compensate 130km of fiber chromatic dispersion. Then, by introducing dielectric perturbers to the last mentioned microstrip line, we will experimentally demonstrate the capability to tune the dispersion of such a line, and therefore the capability to adapt the transmitter to different uncompensated propagation fiber lengths.