Dispersion compensation in an optical communications system
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorsMartin Christopher Tatham, Gerard Sherlock
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of compensating for dispersion in an optical communications system includes the steps of: positioning a semiconductor optical amplifier between a first and a second length of optical fibre, launching optical signals into the first length of optical fibre, directing optical signals emerging from the first length of optical fibre into the semiconductor optical amplifier, supplying optical pump radiation to the semiconductor optical amplifier so that the optidcal signals and the pump radiation interact within the semiconductor optical amplifier and generate the phase conjugate of the optical signals, and launching the phase conjugate optical signals into the second length of optical fibre.
Claims20
A method of compensating for dispersion in an optical communications system, the method comprising the steps of
- i) positioning a semiconductor optical amplifier between a first and a second length of optical fibre,
- ii) launching optical signals into the first length of optical fibre,
- iii) directing optical signals emerging from the first length of optical fibre into the semiconductor optical amplifier,
- iv) supplying optical pump radiation to the semiconductor optical amplifier so that the optical signals and the pump radiation interact within the semiconductor optical amplifier and generate the phase conjugate of the optical signals, and
- v) launching the phase conjugate optical signals into the second length of optical fibre.
An optical communications system comprising:
- a transmission path including a first optical fiber and a second optical fiber, an optical signal source for launching optical signals into the first optical fiber, an optical pump source for generating pump radiation, and a semiconductor optical amplifier having an input from the first optical fiber and an output to the second optical fiber, wherein, the semiconductor optical amplifier receives the pump radiation and the optical signals, after said signals have propagated through the first optical fiber, and generates phase conjugate replicas of the optical signals, which replicas are launched into the second optical fiber.
An optical communications system, comprising:
- a first length of optical fiber;
- a second length of optical fiber;
- a semiconductor optical amplifier disposed between said first and second optical fibers and operatively connecting said first optical fiber to said second optical fiber;
- an optical pump source providing pump radiation to said semiconductor optical amplifier;
- and
- an optical signal source launching optical signals into said first optical fiber;
- wherein said semiconductor optical amplifier receives said optical signals from said first optical fiber and pump radiation from said optical pump source to generate a phase conjugate of the optical signals, said semiconductor optical amplifier further launching said phase conjugate into said second optical fiber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.