Experimental demonstration of thin-film dispersion compensation for 50-GHz filters

Dispersion management is critical for next-generation high-bandwidth-utilization fiber-optical networks. Squaretop thin-film bandpass filters for 50-GHz dense wavelength-division multiplexing inherently have high chromatic dispersion (CD) in transmission. The imparted dispersion power penalty on the network is undesirable. However, a second thin-film filter, operating in reflection, can be designed to compensate the CD of the bandpass filter. In this paper we demonstrate experimentally the reduction of the intrinsic CD of a 50-GHz thin-film coupler from + 170 ps/nm to +50 ps/nm over a 30-GHz passband, through the use of such a cascaded thin-film compensator. Network simulations based on filter performance confirm the reduced dispersion power penalty of the cascade over the individual filter.