Tunable Dispersion Compensation in a 40 Gb/s System using a Compact FIR Lattice Filter in SiON Technology

We present a tunable dispersion compensator for 40 Gb/s optical transmission systems, based on a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) lattice filter. The device has a Free Spectral Range (FSR) of approximately 100 GHz, low delay ripple and a wide tuning range from D = -120 ps/nm to +120 ps/nm. System experiments are presented for 40 Gb/s NRZ coded transmission.

Introduction

In high bitrate optical transmission systems dispersion compensation is a critical aspect, as the dispersion tolerances will be smaller than the temporal dispersion fluctuations in the system, e.g. due to rerouting or temperature and power variations. Therefore, to compensate for these variations a tunable dispersion compensation is needed.