SC314 Hands-on Fiber Characterization for the Engineering of Long Haul and Metro Deployments

Tuesday, March 23, 2010
2:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Danny Peterson¹, Christine Tremblay²; ¹Verizon Business, USA, ² École de Technologie Supérieure, Univ. du Québec, Canada
Level: Advanced Beginner (basic understanding of topic is necessary to follow course material)


Course Description

In this hands-on course you will measure all of the necessary fiber parameters for qualifying and engineering the optical fiber links of long haul and metro networks at a specified bit rate. The course will begin with a review of the basics of loss, reflectance, chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion in optical fiber links, as well as the challenges in moving from 10G to 40G and 100G bit rates. Bit-rate dependent loss and dispersion limits will be calculated for fiber qualification purposes. Descriptions of the course equipment and experimental setups will follow. The participants will then divide into small groups and rotate among four lab stations. In Lab 1, participants will measure loss and optical return loss in optical fiber links using power meters and optical time-domain reflectometers (OTDR). In Lab 2, participants will measure the chromatic dispersion in optical fiber links using two different measurement techniques. The first one is the time-of-flight method and the second is the phase-shift method. Christine Tremblay is the instructor. In Lab 3, participants will measure the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical links with combinations of high-PMD fibers using different measurement techniques: the interferometric method, the fixed analyzer method, the Stokes parameter evaluation method and the random-scrambling tunable POTDR method. Daniel Peterson is the instructor. The course will conclude with a review of the pros and cons for each method as well as an analysis of measurements results. Please note that the PMD portion of SC314 and SC210 overlaps in content.


Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Learn about transmission limits as a function of bit rate and application.
  • Gain the knowledge to make decisions on when specific fiber testing is necessary dependent on the application.
  • Measure polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) using Interferometric and JME methods.
  • Measure chromatic dispersion (CD) using both time-of-flight (TOF) and phase-shift methods, and discuss CD compensation in mixed-fiber type mesh environments.
  • Discuss the effect of PMD and chromatic dispersion on high-speed digital signals.
  • Discuss the outage probability in optical fiber transmission systems due to PMD-induced degradation.
  • Take optical time-domain reflectometry (OTDR) for loss and splice characterization.
  • Describe the system-level effects of polarization-related impairments on long-haul optical transmission.

Intended Audience

This course is intended for engineers, technicians and managers involved with optical fiber, components or systems, including those that operate at or above 10Gb/s.


Biography

Daniel Peterson is a distinguished member of the technical staff at Verizon. He has directed the characterization of the ULH network fiber. He is an internal advisor on optical technologies and is responsible for specifying new optical fiber and characterization of older fiber for Verizon’s ULH network. Peterson is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. He received a PhD (electrical engineering) from the University of Texas.

Christine Tremblay is a professor at the École de Technologie Supérieure, Université du Québec. She set up the Laboratoire de technologies de réseaux, a high-speed WDM physical layer test-bed, and established courses on optical communications and networking. Her current research includes the exploration of optical layer characterization techniques and novel optical network architectures. She also held senior R&D and technology management positions at Nortel, EXFO and INO. She received a PhD (optoelectronics) from the École Polytechnique de Montréal.