Demonstration of optical tunable dispersion compensation with a virtually-imaged phased-array based pulse shaper

Tunable dispersion compensation is one of the most essential technologies needed for the next generation fiber optic communication systems. The applications will include replacing various lengths of conventional Dispersion Compensating Fibers (DCF) and compensating residual dispersion after the DCF to meet the tight dispersion tolerances required in 40-Gbps and above based networks. To satisfy the future applications, tunable dispersion compensator (TDC) must provide both positive and negative dispersion as well as large tuning range.; The Virtually-Imaged Phased-Array (VIPA) may be considered as a side-entrance etalon device that achieves angular dispersion through multiple beam interference. To our knowledge, we introduced the first VIPA based programmable Fourier transform pulse shaper in the application of optical pulse manipulation in the femtosecond time scale. Here we extend the application of VIPA based pulse shaper to TDC for fiber optic communication systems. Although many TDCs have been demonstrated with various technologies, their tunability is limited to relative small ranges or only provide single wavelength channel compensation.; This thesis covers development and demonstration of the VIPA based pulse shaper in the application of TDC which provide WDM-capability, polarization independence, and large tuning range in both positive and negative directions (largest for optical TDC, to our knowledge). The fiber optic transmission system with various modulation formats has been used to evaluate TDC characteristics.