Optical fibers with low nonlinearity and low polarization-mode dispersion for terabit communications

Refractive-index nonlinearities have negligible effect on the performance of short-haul fiber-optic communication links utilizing electronic repeaters. However, in long links, nonlinearities can cause severe signal degradations. To mitigate nonlinear effects, a new generation of fibers, referred to as large effective-area fibers, have been introduced in recent years. This paper reviews the latest research and development work on these fibers conducted by several research groups around the world. Attention is focused on a class of large effective-area fibers that are based on a depressed-core multiple-cladding design. Another important issue in long-haul and high capacity fiber optic systems is the polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) which has been recognized as a serious limiting factor. In this paper, an improved fiber design is proposed which, in addition to providing large effective-area and low bending loss, eliminates PMD due to elliptical deformation in the single-mode wavelength region. Furthermore, this design is allowed to provide a small chromatic dispersion about few ps/nmkm, in order to overcome four-wave mixing effects.