Dispersion compensation

Summary form only given. Chromatic dispersion in conventional fibers can severely restrict high bit-rate transmission over long distances. Two major technologies for dispersion compensation have emerged in recent years: (i) dispersion compensating fibers, which through their fiber design can provide the desired negative dispersion over a broad wavelength range, and (ii) dispersion compensating gratings, which via their chirped nature can delay one spectral component relative to another. In this tutorial we review the fundamental principles that govern the performance of these two techniques and provide an insight into the issues a system designer must address before making the technology choice. We focus on figures-of-merit, bandwidths of operation, system penalties and maturity of commercial products as yardsticks for objective comparison.