Four-wave mixing efficiency in installed dispersion-shifted fibers: effects of zero-dispersion wavelength variations

Summary form only given. Four-wave mixing (FWM) can cause significant penalties in multiwavelength transmission systems using dispersion-shifted fibers (DSF) in the zero-dispersion wavelength region. In installed fibers /spl lambda//sub 0/ typically varies along the length of the fiber effectively reducing the maximum FWM efficiency. Numerical simulations have demonstrated sensitivity to the actual dispersion variations; however it has been difficult to extract general parameter dependencies applicable to analysis of measurement data. In this paper we present measurement of the FWM efficiency in several installed DSF links for 0.8 nm and 3.2 nm wavelength spacing and we develop a theoretical model to explain the observed deviations from a model assuming constant zero-dispersion wavelength.