1768 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. LT-5, NO.

12, DECEMBER 1987

Dispersion Statistics in Concatenated Single-Mode

Fibers
RAIMUNDO D ~ A ZDE LA IGLESIA, MEMBER, IEEE, AND ENRIQUE TOB~ASAZPITARTE

Abstruct-Dispersion measurement data from two sets of fiber cable to measured group delays of individual fibers. Further-
lengths were employed to determine the histograms of slope and wave-
more, the group-delay of joined fibers is assumed to be
length of zerochromatic-dispersioninconcatenatedsingle-mode fi-
bers. We use a Monte-Carlo technique under two concatenating scen- the sum of individual fiber delays. Then, a Monte-Carlo
arios, depending on whether those fibers being concatenated are or are technique is employed to determinethe histograms of
not manufactured by the same process. Results show that the variances slope ( S o ) and wavelength of zero-chromatic dispersion
of slope and wavelength of zero dispersion are inversely proportional ( X), for 60 000 concatenated links under various conca-
to the numberN of fiber cable lengths being concatenated. The average tenating scenarios. The process was performed for links
andstandarddeviation of zero-chromaticdispersionwavelength
changes less than 0.005 percent or 1 percent, respectively, when the joining up to 9, 16, and 25 cable lengths and under two
actual dispersion slopesof individual fiber lengths being concatenated concatenating scenarios; these scenarios attempt to cover
are replaced by random quantities distributed with Uniformity within those situations in which the cable route only includes fi-
0.08-0.1 ps/km . nm’. bers manufactured by the same process and under similar
conditions, as well as those casesin which the cable man-
I. INTRODUCTION ufacturer is supplied by two fiber makers, or by a single
manufacturer which provides fibers made by two pro-
F OR LONG repeater spacing and/or high-bit-rate ap- cesses.
plications thereisinterestindeterminingtheslope
( S o ) and wavelength of zero-chromatic dispersion ( X,) of
Results indicate that variance of dispersion parameters
in joined fibers (So and X), follow a reduction propor-
joined single-mode fibers in repeatersections [l], [2]. tional to 1/ N , N being the number of fiber cable lengths
This is because chromatic dispersionmay impose ultimate concatenated.Furthermore,the X, quantity of concate-
limits in the maximum allowable repeater spacing,partic- nated fibers show a very small sensitivity upon Soj quan-
ularly when multilongitudinal mode lasers are employed tities: regardless of the actual measured values, if random
[31. -dalues, distributed with uniformity in the range 0.08-0.1
To cope with this need, some techniques and measure- ps/km - nm2,areemployed,theaverage
ment sets havebeen developed intended for measuring the deviation of X. changes less than 0.005 percent and 1 per-
and standard
chromatic dispersion of long spans of single-mode fibers cent, respectively. As a main conclusion, we reach the
in factories and/or in the field as well [4]-[8]. opinion that field dispersion measurements in thefield may
Because measurements in the field environment are al- not be needed if statistics of dispersion parameters ( SOi
ways time-consuming and expensive activities, our pur- and hoievaluated by sample measurements in the factory)
pose is to find out relationships which enable us to ex- are available.
trapolate chromatic-dispersion
the properties for
concatenated fibers based upon the statistics of slope (Sei)
and zero-dispersion wavelength ( X o i ) of individual fiber 11. STUDYMETHOD
cable lengths. Furthermore, the effect of zero-dispersion B. Assumptions and Formalism
wavelength variance of individual fiber cable lengths on When two or more single-mode fibers operating above
repeater-section dispersion-budgeting is also clarified [9]. cutoff wavelength are joined together, the totalgroup de-
Thescope ofour results is limited to conventional lay is assumed to be the sumof the individual fiber delays.
(matched or depressed cladded) dispersion-unshifted fi- On the other hand, when two fibers are connected, some
ber-designs optimizedforoperating around the1.3-pm portion of the guided wave couples to the propagation
wavelength region. mode and another portion to the radiation mode that usu-
The method followed employs as a database the facto- ally disappears from the connection point.If there is some
ry’s dispersion measurements of two setsof 112- and 153- disturbance in thefiber before the leaky mode is quenched,
fiber cable lengths. A three-term Sellmeier curve is fitted this mode comes back to the propagation mode. Never-
theless in.actua1fiber-cable installations this is not the case
because the splices are spaced enough and then unguided
Manuscript received December 29, 1986; revised March 6, 1987. modes are attenuated significantly.
The authors are with Telefonica, Subdirecci6n General de Tecnologia,
28040 Madrid, Spain. Polarization dispersion and nonlinearaddition of wave-
IEEE Log Number 8717071. guide and material dispersions may also degrade the ac-

0733-8729/87/1200-1768$01.OO O 1987 IEEE

IGLESIA AND AZPITARTE:DISPERSIONSTATISTICSINCONCATENATEDFIBERS 1769

curacy of thegroup delays addition assumption.How-

ever, there is evidence indicating that delay and dispersion
are additive in concatenations of conventional single-mode 30
I SAMPLE
SlZE=ll2 SIGMA=2.8 I
fibers [lo], [12], [ 141 and concatenations of conventional a
w
and dispersion-shifted fibers [ l l ] , [13] aswell.Onthe m
r
20

otherhand,some quadruple-clad designs [15], [16] 3

2
showed a multimode performance( LPll and LPoz;the lat- 10

ter is sometimes even more strongly guided than LPI1)

only indicated by dispersion penalty after splicing of those 1305 1310 131s
fibers [ 171.
In order to fit a curve to the measured groupdelay ver-
sus wavelength of individual fiber lengths, a three-term
Sellmeier equation is widely accepted for dispersion-un- MEAN; 86.1
SIGMA= 2.07
shifted single-mode fibers [ 181-[21]. Therefore, the mea-
sured group delay for a particular fiber “i” can be stated
as :

T ( X ) a ( A +~ B~X’ + c i h v 2 ) li -
= (Toi + (Soi/8) (X - &,/X,”) li (1)
the dispersion coefficient dT/dX is
D~(X) = (sOi/4)( X - Gi,h3) Zi (2)
80 84 88 92
the quantities li, biand Soj are the length, the zero-dis-
persion wavelength, and the dispersion slope at Xoi of that
i fiber, respectively.
Fig. 1 . Dispersion measurements: Database no. 1 scenario (sample size =
Therefore, because additivity is assumed for the fiber 112 fiber cable lengths). (a) Zero-dispersion wavelength ( X,,), (b) dis-
delays and for the wavelength derivative, the slope (So) persion coefficient slope (Sot)at zero-dispersion wavelength.
and wavelength ( X,) for a linkof “ N ” individual joined
fibers can be obtained:

SAMPLE MEAN= 1313.8

SIZE I26S SIGMA= 6.3
30
P
w
m 2 0
I
3
2
10

B. Dispersion of Concatenated-Fibers: Scenarios

Histograms of slope and wavelengthof zero dispersion 1305 1315 1325

in concatenated fibers were determined using Soi and Xoi

data from a whole population of 265 fiber cable lengths,
being that these fibers weremanufactured by two pro-
cesses and that their lengths Zi quite similar. The individ- 100

ual fiber dispersion measurement data (Figs. 1 and 2) was

entered into two files (following two concatenating sce- a
w
narios described below) and a random number generator m
I 60
together with (3) and (4) were used to determine So and a
2
X. in 10 000 concatenated links. The process was per-
formed for N quantity values of 9, 16, and 25 for both the
no. 1 scenario and the no. 2 scenario databases. 20
Under the no. 1 scenario we attempt to cover those sit-
uations in which each particular cable route only includes 80 84 88 92
fibers manufactured by the same process and under simi-
lar conditions. On the other hand, the no. 2 scenario at-
tempts to cover those cases in which the cable manufac-
tureris supplied by two fiber makers,or by a single Fig. 2 . Dispersion measurements: database no. 2 scenario (sample size =
265 fiber cable lengths) (a) zero-dispersion wavelength ( Xoi), (b) dis-
manufacturer who providesfibers made by two processes. persion coefficient slope(Sei) at zero-dispersion wavelength.
1770 J O U R N A L OF LIGHTWAVETECHNOLOGY,VOL.LT-5, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1987

3 ~ 1 0 ~ - 1 TABLE I
DEVIATION
STANDARD OF ZERO-DISPERSION WAVELENGTH ( X") AS A
N: 9
N.25 FUNCTION
OF THE NUMBER ( N ) OF CABLELENGTHSBEINGJOINED

Em zX1o3. I
I
I
3
-
L?1
103-
I
I I
I
L-;
I
- L-l

1305 1307 1309 1311 (nm )

Fig. 3 . Histogram of zero-dispersion wavelength of concatenated fiber ca-
ble lengths for no. 1 scenario:-N = 25, - - - N = 9.

( * ) From cable-lengths measurements.

2

--- N - 9
TABLE I1
STANDARD DEVIATIONOF SLOPE (so) AT ZERO-DISPERSION WAVELENGTH,
m OF THENUMBER( N ) OF CABLE LENGTHS
AS A FUNCTION BEINGJOINED
I

# 1 .csnuio #2 K.l).rio
L( d o 3 m/lo.ni2) ( a 0 3 mnp1.ni2:

Ibl 2.0695 (.) 2.0782 (*I

1319
1309
1317
1315
1313
1311
k.9 0.7254 0.7235
(nm )
Fig. 4. Histogram of zero-dispersion wavelength of concatenated fiber ca- I@-16 0.5301 0.5412
ble lengths for no. 2 scenario:-N = 25, - - - N = 9 .
Ib.25 0.4205 0.4290

Furthermore, the actual effect of the distribution of Soi ( * ) From cable-lengths measurements

of fiber lengths population on X. was investigated. This

was done by repeating the above process but replacing the
actual Soi quantity of individual fibers by a random quan-
tity distributed with uniformity within 0.08-0.1 ps/km * 2.5
0 - # 2 SCENARIO
nm2 (that range is representative of conventional quasi- 0 - # 1 SCENARIO
step single-mode dispersion-unshifted fibers).
111. RESULTS
The validity of the forthcoming results should not be
fully extended to single-mode fiber designs for which a
three-term Sellmeier curve fitting may lack enough accu-
racy, as in dispersion-shifted fibers [22], for instance.
Figs. 3 and 4 illustrate histograms of wavelength ( X,)
of zero dispersion in concatenated single-mode fibers, un-
der the no. 1 and no. 2 scenarios, respectively. In both
figures the cases are depicted in which the end-to-end fi-
ber link concatenates 9 or 25 individual fiber cable
lengths. 9 16 2 5 (Nl
Tables I and I1 show numerical values of the standard Fig. 5. Standard deviation of zero-dispersion wavelength (X,) as a func-
deviations of wavelength X. and slope So. Fig. 5 illus- tion of the number ( N ) of cable lengths being joined.
trates the dependence of the standard deviation of X. as a
function of the number of cable lengthsbeing joined; also
the standard deviationof So versus N shows asimilar ps/km * nm2. Tables I11 and IV indicate that the impact
shape. is less than 0.005 percent ( = 0.1 nm) and less than I
In order to verify to what extent the actual Soi values percent for the average and standard deviation of ho, re-
(zero-dispersion slope of individual cable lengths) impact spectively.
in the average varianceof X. (zero-dispersion wavelength
of concatenated links) the measured Soi quantities of da- IV. DISCUSSION
tabases (Figs. 1 and 2) were replaced by random quan- Figs. 3 and 4, and Tables I and I1 as well, indicate that
tities distributed with uniformity in the range 0.08-0.1 standard deviation of slope ( S o ) and wavelength ( ho) of
IGLESIA AND AZPITARTE:DISPERSIONSTATISTICSINCONCATENATEDFIBERS 1771

TABLE 111 So; and also being these errors reduced as N increases.
INFLUENCE OF CHROMATIC DISPERSION SLOPES ( & ) AT ZERO-DISPERSION
OF ZERO-DISPERSION
WAVELENGTH OF INDIVIDUAL FIBERS ON THE AVERAGE
That could be expected from the central limit theorem;
WAVELENGTH ( &) OF CONCATENATED FJBERS however, those results provide a picture of how fast the
whole distribution of X. and Soevolves to a Gaussian one.
What is more surprising is the very small sensitivity of
X. upon the dispersion slope of individual fibers being
joined ( S o j ) , at least for those conventional single-mode
fiber designs (dispersion unshifted). An implication of this
could be that, for improving time and material cost effi-
ciency when measuring fiber dispersion in the factory, a
1307.35 1307.41 lowernumber of X’s couldbeemployed:only those
1307.45 1307.a needed to determine Xoi. This is because for predicting
dispersion in fiber concatenations a prefixed Soi value can
be employed (for instance, an upper value of 0.1 ps/km
nm2 could be appropriate for conventional single-mode
fibers designed for operation at the 1.3-pm region).
A . Jmplications on Link Dispersion Budgeting
Because of the reduction of standard deviation of both
1313.55
9 1313.54
slope andwavelength of zero dispersion in long-con-
catenated links, by extrapolating the standard deviations
1313.58
16 1313.58
of dispersion parameters ( Soi, Xoi) evaluated by sample
25 - 1313.61 measurements in the factory, one may obtain results com-
parable with the standard deviations provided by end-to-
(*I Distributed with uniformity end field dispersion measurements. As a consequence, the
within 0.08-0.1 ps/km.nmz
actual need for measuring the end-to-enddispersion in the
field may be questioned. This may happen not only if the
TABLE IV
fiber or cable manufacturer supplies the two dispersion
INFLUENCE OF CHROMATIC DISPERSION SLOPES (&) AT ZERO-DISPERSIONparameters measured for eachindividual section [ 121, but
WAVELENGTH OF INDIVIDUAL FIBERS ON THE STANDARD DEVIATION
OF also in the case that statistics of both those parameters
ZERO-DISPERSION WAVELENGTH ( 0 x 0 ) OF CONCATENATED FIBERS
would be available. Such statistics are obtained by sample
measurements and therefore there is no longer a need for
measuring 100 percent of individual fiber sections.
B. Implications on Link Dispersion Budgeting
Whenthedispersionbudgetbetween regeneration
points is described statistically, the maximum repeater
spacing imposed by chromatic dispersion in digital sys-
tems using multilongitudinal-mode lasers isinversely pro-
portional to the quantity X,, being x,and a,, the average
andthe standard deviation of the peaked laser wave-
length:
x, = IX, - &I + K ( P ) (4+ $ x O ) ” * . (5)
K ( P ) is related to the shapes of the statistical distribu-
tions of both laser’s peaked wavelengthsX, and the fibers
zero-dispersion wavelengths Xoi. Furthermore, K ( p ) also
depends on the confidence degree P percent [3] (a ,d (per-
cent) confidence degree means that for 100 repeater sec-
tions,only (lOO-,d) will showachromatic dispersion
larger than a prefixed value).
( * ) Distributed with uniformity
within 0 . 0 8 - 0 . 1 ps/krn.nm2 Because the dependence of uA0with the number of con-
catenated fibers in repeater sections N ( uho = axOj/&)
and also because a, = 5-10 nm (see Fig. 6) and axojI
zero dispersion’in concatenated fibers are reduced by ‘in- 5 nm, then u& << a: in long-concatenated fiber sections
creasing the number N of fiber cable lengths being joined. (larger than 10 cable lengths, for instance).
This reduction is proportional to ( l / N ) ’ / * with an error From the above, one can reach the conclusion that ex-
lower than 1 percent for X. and lower than 10 percent for isting variances of zero-dispersion wavelength in high-
1772 J O U R N A L OF LIGHTWAVETECHNOLOGY,VOL. LT-5, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1987

F. M. E. Sladen et al. “Chromatic dispersion measurements on long

I
z Sept. 22-25, 1986,pp. 17-25.
1270 1310 (”,,,)
Fig. 6. Laser manufacturers’ survey about the average and extreme peaked
multilongitudinal laser wavelengths (after [9]).
quality single-mode fibers do not play a significant role
on the maximum repeater spacing imposed by chromatic
dispersion, at least if transmitters employ multilongitu-
dinal-mode lasers.
fiberlengthsusing L E D s , ” ElectronLett., vol.22,pp.841-842,
July 31, 1986.
P. Bachmann et al., “Ultrabroad-band single-mode fibers prepared
with PCVD,” in Tech. Dig. Optical Fiber Commun. Con$ (San
Diego, CA), Feb. 11-13, 1985, pap. TUQ23.
P. L. Francois et al., “Multimode nature of quadruple-clad fibers,”
Electron Lett., vol. 20, p. 37, 1984.
P. K. Bachmann, “Dispersion flattened and dispersion shifted single-
mode fibers: Worldwide status,” Proc. 12th ECOC(Barcelona, Spain)
L. G . Cohen et al., “Dispersionandbandwidthspectra in single-
mode fibers,” IEEE J . Quantum Electron., vol. QE-18, pp. 49-53,
1982.
G. W. Coming, “111 dispersion in single-mode fiber,” product in-
formation 1/84.
S. Tanaka and Y. Kitayama, “Measurement accuracy of chromatic
dispersion by the modulation phase technique,” J . Lightwave Tech-
nol., 1984, vol. LT-2, pp. 1040-1044, Dec. 1984.
T. Horiguchi,M.Tokuda,and Y. Negishi,“Chromaticdispersion
measurement over 50-km single-mode fiber,”J . Lightwave Technol.,
vol. LT-3, pp. 51-54, Feb. 1985.
K. D. D., “Comments on fitting curve in chromatic dispersion mea-
surement of single mode optical fibers,” presented at CCITT, Ge-
neve, Switzerland, Feb. 1986, delayed contrib. D. 102/XV.

REFERENCES
“Chromatic dispersion measurement of single-mode optical fibers by *
the phase-shift method,” presented EIA FOTP, 1969.
Working Party XVIS, CCITT, Geneve, Switzerland Rep. R-7, July
1, 1985.
R. Diaz de la Iglesia, “Statistical approach to end-to-end dispersion
budgetinginsingle-modefiberlinksusingmultilongitudinal-mode Raimundo Diaz de la Iglesia (S’77-M’81) was
lasers, J . Lightwave Technol., vol. LT-4, pp. 767-771, July 1986. borninMadrid,Spain, on March10,1954.He
C.Lin et al., “Chromaticdispersionmeasurements in single-mode receivedthe M.S. degree in telecommunication
fibersusingpicosecond I,G,A,P injectionlaser in the1.2-1.5pm engineering from Politecnica University, Madrid,
spectral region,” Bell. Syst Tech. J . , vol. 62, pp. 457-462, Feb. 1983. Spain, in 1976.
P. J. Vella, P. M. Garel-Jones, and R. S. Lowe, “Measurement of In 1978hejoined Telefhica. He wasorigi-
chromatic dispersion of long spafs of single-mode fiber: A factory nally engaged in high-capacity line-systems stan-
and field test method,” Elecrron. Lett., vol. 20, pp. 167-168, Feb. darization.Since1980, he hasbeenengaged in
16,1984. researchandstudies on fiber-opticcommunica-
[6] R. Rao,“Fielddispersionmeasurements-asweptfrequencytech- tions. He has published more than 30 papers in the
nique,” in Tech. Dig. Symp. on Optical Fiber Measurement (Boul- area of fiber optics, and is the author of Comuni-
der, CO), 1984, pp. 135-138. caciones por fibra 6ptic a: Manual de ingenieria, (Barcelona: Marcombo,
[7] W. H. Hatton and M . Nishimura, “New field measurementsystem 1985).
for single-mode fiber dispersion utilizing wavelength division multi- Mr. Diaz is a membe r of FITCE, OSA, and SPIE.
plexingtechnique,” Electron. Lett., vol. 21, pp. 1072-1073, Nov.
7, 1985.
[8] M. Fujise et al., “Chromatic dispersion measurement over a 100-km
dispersion-shifted single-mode fiberby a new phase-shift technique,”
Electron. Lett., vol. 22, pp. 570-572, May 22, 1986. K

[9] R. Diaz de la Iglesia, “Novel approach to end-to-end dispersion in

single-modefiberlinksusingmultilongitudinallasers,”in Proc.
IOOC/ECOC (Venezia, Italy), pp. 827-830, Oct. 1985.
[IO] N. Imoto,A.Siguimura, K. Daikuku,and T . Miya,“Dispersion
characteristics in single-mode optical fibers,” Rev. Electrical Com-
mun. Lab., vol. 27, pp. 515-521, July-Aug. 1979.
[I I] C. Lin et al., “Optical pulse equalization and low dispersion trans-
mission in single-mode fibers in the 1.3-1.7 spectral region,” Proc.
6th ECOC (York, England), 1980, pp. 91-94.
[I21 J. C . Olson, F . P. Kapron, and T. W. Geyer, “Describing dispersion
inconcatenatedsingle-modefibercables,” in Proc.Int.Wire and
Cable Symp. (Cherry Hill, NJ), 1984, pp. 276-281.
[I31 D. S. Larner and V. A. Bhagavatula, “Dispersion reductionin single-
mode fibre links,” Electron. Lett., vol. 21, pp. 1171-1172, Nov. 21,
1985.