Optical Fiber Enhancements

A series of enhancements from Corning Inc. are to its non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber with large effective that will improve overall system performance and open a new performance window for telecommunications networks.

The LEAF optical fiber features an effective area equivalent to that of the original version. This provides a critical performance advantage because it uniformly reduces all non-linear effects that represent the great performance limitation in multi-channel dense wavelength division multiplexing systems.

In both the C-Band and L-Band operation, LEAF fiber demonstrates the ability to handle more channels by reducing non-linear effects such as self-phase modulation, cross-phase modulation, and stimulated brillouin scattering multi-channel DWDM transmission.

The original LEAF fiber has a core/clad concentricity of <0.8 µm, as opposed to the enhanced specification of <0.5 µm. The original had a fiber curl of >2 m, as opposed to the enhanced specification of >4 m.

Corning, Inc., Telecommunications Products Division, 35 W. Market St., Corning, NY 14831. Phone: 607-974-4432; Fax: 607-974-4548.