Performance Analysis of Dispersion Compensation in WDM Optical Communication Systems

The rapid growth in demand for high-capacity telecommunication links, and the speed limitation of single-wavelength links, has resulted in an extraordinary increase in the use of Wavelength-Division Multiplexing (WDM) in advanced lightwave networks. WDM is a technology which multiplexes a number of carrier signals onto a single optical fiber using different wavelengths of light. Hence the capacity of optical transmission systems can be increased using WDM. Dispersion is a major limiting factors in high speed optical WDM network which causes pulse broadening and crosstalk in the system. Therefore it is necessary to compensate dispersion. Dispersion Compensating Fiber (DCF), Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) and Optical Phase Conjugator (OPC) and its various combinations are used for dispersion compensation in WDM system. Performance analysis of a conventional WDM system with various dispersion compensation schemes and their comparison on the basis of Q Factor is done using optsim software in sample mode