Effect of temperature on the single mode fibers chromatic dispersion

We investigate the effect of temperature on optical fiber chromatic dispersion and chromatic dispersion slope, since these parameters affect dispersion compensation at high bit rates. We derive an expression for the chromatic dispersion slope variation with temperature as a function of the zero dispersion wavelength and chromatic dispersion slope at the zero dispersion wavelength. We also verify that this last term has a high contribution to the total chromatic dispersion variation, and can not be ignored. We show that the model of Ghosh et al for the silica refractive index temperature dependence can be used to describe the variation of the dispersion slope within the temperature interval between -40°C and 60°C. Through numerical simulation we verify that the effect of temperature cannot be ignored in the design of dispersion compensation devices for high bitrate systems (40 Gbit/s).