Loss compensation in dispersion compensation fiber modules by Raman amplification

Summary form only given. Dispersion-compensating fiber (DCF) devices relying on normal dispersion for the propagating mode are quite long (typically on the order of several kilometers) and therefore exhibit significant insertion loss. We propose and demonstrate Raman gain induced in the DCF as a simple and attractive method for obtaining lossless DCF modules. The Raman efficiency of the DCF is quite high because of the small mode-field diameter of the fiber, which leads to modest pump power requirements. A pump power of only 225 mW provides enough gain to offset the insertion loss of our 15.7-km DCF module with -1400 ps/nm of dispersion. We have also investigated the noise performance and verified penalty-free operation in a 9.953-Gbit/s transmission experiment.