System and method for dispersion compensation in an optical communication system

(54) SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DISPERSION COMPENSATION IN AN OPTICAL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

(75) Inventors: Mohammed N. Islam, Allen, TX (US);

Amos Kuditcher, Allen, TX (US)

(73) Assignee: Xtera Communications, Inc., Allen, TX (US)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 719 days.

(21) Appl. No.: 10/100,589

(22) Filed: Mar. 15, 2002

(51) Int. CI.

H04B 10/12 (2006.01)
H04B 10/06 (2006.01)
H04B 17/00 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 398/140; 398/202; 398/25

(58) Field of Classification Search 398/81,

398/140-145, 202 See application file for complete search history.

(56) References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

3,772,528 A 11/1973 Anderson 307/88.3

4,616,898 A 10/1986 Hicks, Jr 350/96.15

4,700,339 A 10/1987 Gordon et al 370/3

4,932,739 A 6/1990 Islam 350/96.15

4,995,690 A 2/1991 Islam 350/96.15

5,020,050 A 5/1991 Islam 370/4

5,078,464 A 1/1992 Islam 385/122

5,101,456 A 3/1992 Islam 385/27

5,115,488 A 5/1992 Islam et al 385/129

5,184,243 A 2/1993 Henmi et al 359/181

5,224,194 A 6/1993 Islam 385/122

5,369,519 A 11/1994 Islam 359/173

5,430,568 A * 7/1995 Little et al 398/81

5,485,536 A 1/1996 Islam 385/31

5,557,442 A 9/1996 Huber 359/179

5,559,920 A 9/1996 Chraplyvy et al 385/123

5,608,561 A 3/1997 Marcuse et al 359/161

5,623,508 A 4/1997 Grabb et al 372/3

5,629,795 A 5/1997 Suzuki et al 359/337

(Continued)
FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
EP 0 903 877 A2 3/1999

(Continued)

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Hansen et al., "Repeaterless transmission experiment employing dispersion," 21st European Conference on Optical Communication, vol. 2, 1 page, Sep. 17-21, 1995.

(Continued)

Primary Examiner—Agusfin Bello

Assistant Examiner—David Lee

(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Baker Botts L.L.P.

(57) ABSTRACT

An optical communication system includes a first end terminal comprising a first transponder operable to receive a first electrical signal and generate an optical signal based at least in part on the first electrical signal for communication to a multiple span communication link. The optical signal experiences at least partial dispersion compensation from an optical dispersion compensating element as it traverses the communication link. The system also includes a second end terminal comprising a second transponder operable to receive the optical signal and generate a second electrical signal based at least in part on the optical signal. At least one of the first and second end terminals further includes an electronic dispersion compensation module operable to provide electronic dispersion compensation to at least a portion of at least one of the first and second electrical signals. The electronic dispersion compensation module is operable to at least partially compensate for at least a portion of a residual dispersion for which the optical dispersion compensating element does not compensate.

31 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

5,642,215 A 6/1997 Suzuki et al 359/161

5,664,036 A 9/1997 Islam 385/31

5,673,280 A 9/1997 Grubb et al 372/3

5,778,014 A 7/1998 Islam 372/6

5,784,184 A 7/1998 Alexander et al 359/125

5,796,909 A 8/1998 Islam 385/147

5.798.853 A 8/1998 Watanabe 359/160

5,815,518 A 9/1998 Reed et al 372/6

5,828,478 A 10/1998 Thomine et al 359/181

5,872,647 A 2/1999 Taga et al 359/184

5,887,093 A 3/1999 Hansen et al 385/27

5,905,838 A 5/1999 Judy et al 385/123

5,953,138 A 9/1999 Ellis 359/123

5,959,750 A 9/1999 Eskildsen et al 359/134

5,978,130 A 11/1999 Fee et al 359/341

5,999,289 A 12/1999 Ihara et al 359/124

6,005,702 A 12/1999 Suzuki et al 359/183

6,043,927 A 3/2000 Islam 359/332

6.052.393 A 4/2000 Islam 372/6

6,067,180 A 5/2000 Roberts 359/181

6,081,360 A 6/2000 Ishikawa et al 359/161

6,081,366 A 6/2000 Kidorfetal 359/341

6,097,524 A 8/2000 Doran et al 359/179

6,101,024 A 8/2000 Islam et al 359/334

6,115,173 A 9/2000 Tanaka et al 359/333

6,118,566 A * 9/2000 Price 398/194

6,141,127 A 10/2000 Boivin et al 359/124

6,151,160 A 11/2000 Ma et al 359/341

6.163.394 A 12/2000 Webb 359/181

6,181,449 Bl 1/2001 Taga et al 359/124

6.191.854 Bl 2/2001 Grasso et al 356/341

6,204,949 Bl 3/2001 Ishikawa et al 359/161

6,229,937 Bl 5/2001 Nolan et al 385/24

6,236,488 Bl 5/2001 Shimizu et al 359/187

6.239.902 Bl 5/2001 Islam et al 359/334

6.239.903 Bl 5/2001 Islam et al 359/337

6,246,498 Bl 6/2001 Dishman et al 359/123

6,252,692 Bl 6/2001 Roberts 359/173

6,252,700 Bl 6/2001 Hwang et al 359/337

6,310,716 Bl 10/2001 Evans et al 359/334

6,317,239 Bl 11/2001 Burbidge et al 359/161

6,335,820 Bl 1/2002 Islam 359/334

6,356,384 Bl 3/2002 Islam 359/334

6,359,725 Bl 3/2002 Islam 359/334

6,370,164 Bl 4/2002 Islam 372/6

6,374,006 Bl 4/2002 Islam et al 385/15

6,381,391 Bl 4/2002 Islam et al 385/123

6,529,305 Bl* 3/2003 Meeker et al 398/158

6,654,564 Bl* 11/2003 Colbourne et al 398/147

6,694,273 Bl * 2/2004 Kurooka et al 702/69

6,731,877 Bl* 5/2004 Cao 398/91

2002/0039217 Al* 4/2002 Saunders et al 359/161

2005/0041974 Al* 2/2005 Novak et al 398/81

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

WO 98/36479 8/1998

WO 98/42088 9/1998

WO 99/66607 12/1999

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Baney et al., "WDM EDFA Gain Characterization with a Reduced Set of Saturating Channels," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 8, No. 12, pp. 1615-1617, Dec. 1996. Goel et al., "Wide-Band Dispersion Compensating Optical Fiber," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 8, No. 12, pp. 1668-1670, Dec. 1996.

Masuda et al., "Ultra-wideband optical amplification with 3dB bandwidth of 65 nm using a gain-equalised two-stage erbium-doped fibre amplifier and Raman amplification,"

Electronic Letters, vol. 33, No. 9, pp. 73-78, Feb. 24, 1997. Kawai et al., "Ultrawide, 75nm 3-dB gain-band optical amplifier utilizing erbium-doped fluoride fiber and Raman fiber," Tuesday Afternoon, OFC Technical Digest, TuG3, pp. 32-33, 1998.

Rotwitt et al., "Distributed Raman Amplifiers for Long Haul Transmission Systems," IEEE, pp. 251-252, 1998. Hansen et al.; "Loss compensation in dispersion compensating fiber modules by Raman amplification," Optical Fiber Conference OFC'98, Technical Digest TuDl, pp. 20-21, 1998.

Hansen et al., "529 km Unrepeatered Transmission at 2.488 Gbit/s Using Dispersion Compensation, Forward Error Correction, and Remote Post-and Pre-amplifiers Pumped by Diode-Pumped Raman Lasers," IEEE Electronics Letters, Online No. 19551043, Jul. 7, 1998.

Becker et al., "Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifiers Fundamentals and Technology," Academic Press, pp. 55-60 plus title and copyright page, 1999.

Masuda et al., "Wide-Band and Gain-Flattened Hybrid Fiber Amplifier Consisting of an EDFA and a Multiwavelength Pumped Raman Amplifier," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 647-649, Jun. 1999. Suzuki et al., "50 GHz spaced, 32x10 Gbit/s dense WDM transmission in zero-dispersion region over 640km of dispersion-shifted fibre with multiwavelength distributed Raman amplification," Electronics Letters, vol. 35, No. 14, pp. 1175-1176, Jul. 8, 1999.

Yun et al., "Dynamic Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplifier Based on Active Gain Flattening with Fiber Acoustooptic Tunable Filters," IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, vol. 11, No. 10, pp. 1229-1231, Oct. 1999.

Otte et al., Performance of Electronic Compensator for Chromatic Dispersion & SPM, ECOC 3.2.4, 2 pages, 2000. Billow et al., "Electronically Enhanced Optical PMD Compensation," ECOC 4.2.4, 2 pages, 2000. Witte et al., "Reducing the optical power penalty for electronically dispersion compensated LED pulse transmission by using multi-bit shift decision feedback," Electronics Letters, vol. 36, No. 5, 2 pages, Mar. 2, 2000. Nielsen et al., "3.28 Tb/s (82/spl times 40 Gb/s) transmission over 3/spl times 100 km nonzero-dispersion fiber using dual C- and L-band hybrid Raman/erbium-doped inline amplifiers," OFCC 2000, pp. 236-238 plus internet title page, Mar. 7-10, 2000.

Cariali et al., "Electronic compensation of PMD and chromatic dispersion with an IC in 10 Gbit/s transmission system," Electronics Letters, vol. 36, No. 10, May 11, 2000. Cravotta, "DWDM: feeding our insatiable appetite for bandwidth (Technology Information)," FindArticles.com, http:// www.findarticles.com, 8 pages, Sep. 1, 2000. Tomkos et al. "Demonstration of Negative Dispersion Fibers for DWDM Metropolitan Area Networks," IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 439-460, May 2001.

Optical Society of America, Optical Amplifiers and Their Applications, Technical Digest, entitled "Raman amplification and dispersion-managed solitons for all-optical, ultralong-haul, dense WDM.", Jul. 1-4, 2001. Woodfin et al. "Negative-dispersion fiber in metropolitan networks," Lightwave, 8 pages, Jan. 2002. Emori et al., OSA Topical Meeting on Optical Amplifiers and Their Applications OAA'98, postdeadline paper PD3, Vail, CO.

Nissov et al., "100 Gb/s (lOxlOGb/s) WDM Transmission Over 7200 km Using Distributed Raman Amplification," pp. 9-12.

Tashiro et al., "1.5 W Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier Pumped by the Wavelength Division-Multiplexed 1480 nm Laser Diodes with Fiber Bragg Grating," Optial Transmission Systems Group, paper WC2-1-3, pp. 213-213. Pending Patent Application; WO 99/66607; entitled "Dispersion Compensating and Amplifying Optical Element, Method for Minimizing Gain Tilt, and Apparatus for Minimizing Non-Linear Interaction between Band Pumps," by Mohammed N. Islam et al, filed Jun. 16, 1999. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 09/800,085; entitled "Dispersion Compensating Nonlinear Polarization Amplifier," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Mar. 5, 2001. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/003,199; entitled "Broadband Amplifier and Communication System," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Oct. 30, 2001. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/005,472; entitled "Multi-Stage Optical Amplifier and Broadband Communication System," by Mohammed Islam, filed Nov. 6, 2001.

Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/007,643; entitled "Multi-Stage Optical Amplifier and Broadband Communication System," by Mohammed Islam, filed Nov. 6, 2001.

Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 09/990,142; entitled "Broadband Amplifier and Communication System," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Nov. 20, 2001. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/014,839; entitled "Multi-Stage Optical Amplifier and Broadband Communication System," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Dec. 10, 2001.

Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/100,587; entitled "Fiber Optic Transmission System with Low Cost Transmitter Compensation," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Mar. 15, 2002.

Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/100,588; entitled "Electro-Absorption Based Modulation," by Herve A Fevricet et al, filed Mar. 15, 2002. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/100,591; entitled "System and Method for Managing System Margin," by Mohammed N. Islam et al, filed Mar. 15, 2002. Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/100,700; entitled "Rack System for an End Terminal in an Optical Communication Network," by Mohammed N. Islam et al, filed Mar. 15, 2002.

Pending Patent Application; U.S. Appl. No. 10/116,487; entitled "Fiber Optic Transmission System for a Metropolitan Area Network," by Mohammed N. Islam, filed Apr. 3, 2002.

* cited by examiner