Survey of systems experiments demonstrating dispersion compensation technologies

Chromatic dispersion compensation is an integral part of WDM transmission system design. Compensator properties such as insertion loss, dispersion slope and effective mode area have a large impact on WDM system performance due to nonlinear optical propagation effects. Dispersion compensator imperfections, such as multi-path interference, group delay ripple, insertion loss ripple and limited per-channel compensation bandwidth, place additional limitations on the achievable transmission distance and capacity. In this paper, a survey of key WDM transmission system experiments is undertaken to 1) review the development of chromatic dispersion compensation technologies, 2) discuss the device characteristics that most impact system design for each technology, and 3) hopefully enable the reader to better evaluate compensator technologies for specific applications.