Cascaded chirped fiber gratings for 18-nm-bandwidth dispersion compensation

Dispersion compensation over an 18-nm bandwidth is achieved with a module of three chirped fiber gratings. Five of these grating modules are demonstrated in the 32-channel WDM transmission of 10 Gbit/s NRZ signals over 375 km (five amplified fiber spans) of conventional fiber. Results from the sweep of a tunable 10-Gbit/s signal in 0.1-nm steps across the 18-nm bandwidth confirm good performance across the entire band.