Fiber types
Optical communications : design and validation

The oldest type of fiber, still the most widely used in the world, is characterized by a chromatic dispersion parameter D that cancels out at around 1.3 μm. Such fibers are known as standard fibers (SMF, Single Mode Fibre, known under the standardized reference G.652). In the wavelength range of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, in the vicinity of 1.55 μm, the dispersion of SMF fiber will reach 17 ps/(nm · km) and compensation techniques are essential for channel propagation at rates of 10 Gbit/s or higher over long distances.

By optimizing the guide's manufacturing parameters, it is possible to shift the dispersion cancellation wavelength λ₀ . A fiber that verifies this property is called Dispersion-Shifted Fibre (DSF, known by the standardized reference G.653). But the introduction of wavelength division multiplexing revealed the harmful impact of channel interactions (as illustrated...