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Article: Fiber-optic chromatic aberration succumbs to mini heaters. (The outlook for new technology: sightings).(research by Bell Labs and Optical Fiber Solutions )(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- EDN
- Article date:
- October 17, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lucent's Bell Labs and spin-off Optical Fiber Solutions have jointly developed a compensator for correcting chromatic dispersion of high-speed optical signals (www.lucent.com and www.ofsoptics.com).
The companies based the design on a Bragg grating within the fiber; it operates by exploiting the thermo-optical properties of the fiber. By changing the position and refractive index of a set of high- and low-refractive-index liquids that are trapped as plugs in microchannels within the fiber, the fiber acts as a notch filter with tunable wavelength and notch depth. This tuning is relatively simple to accomplish, using dc control voltages to control integral heaters. ...