Effects of water absorption peaks on transmission characteristics of LED-based lightwave systems operating near 1.3 µm wavelength

Chromatic dispersion effects on LED-based optical fiber systems are calculated as a function of transmission length and the LED central wavelength. The computer analysis includes the filtering effects of water absorption which reduces the spectral width of LED signal pulses. We show that the basebandwidth of multimode fiber systems can be significantly increased by offsetting the LED central wavelength above the wavelength at which minimum chromatic dispersion occurs in the fiber medium. Additional bandwidth degradation due to modal dispersion effects are not considered. However, the combined effects of optical loss and chromatic dispersion are used to calculate upper limits for repeater spacings in possible multimode wideband systems.