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DISPERSION:
In optics, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its
frequency, or equivalently when the group velocity depends on the frequency. Media having such a
property are termed dispersive media. Dispersion is sometimes called chromatic dispersion to
emphasize its wavelength-dependent nature, or group-velocity dispersion (GVD) to emphasize the
role of the group velocity. Dispersion is most often described for light waves, but it may occur for any
kind of wave that interacts with a medium or passes through an inhomogeneous geometry (e.g.,
a waveguide), such as sound waves. A material's dispersion for optical wavelengths is measured by
its Abbe number, V, with low Abbe numbers corresponding to strong dispersion.
EXAMPLE OF DISPERSION:
The most familiar example of dispersion is probably a rainbow, in which dispersion causes the
spatial separation of a white light into components of different wavelengths (different colors).
However, dispersion also has an effect in many other circumstances: for example, GVD
causes pulses to spread in optical fibers, degrading signals over long distances; also, a cancellation
between group-velocity dispersion and nonlinear effects leads to soliton waves.
SOURCE OF DISPERSION:
There are generally two sources of dispersion: material dispersion and waveguide
dispersion. Material dispersion comes from a frequency-dependent response of a material to waves.
For example, material dispersion leads to undesiredchromatic aberration in a lens or the separation
of colors in a prism. Waveguide dispersion occurs when the speed of a wave in a waveguide (such
as an optical fiber) depends on its frequency for geometric reasons, independent of any frequency
dependence of the materials from which it is constructed. More generally, "waveguide" dispersion
can occur for waves propagating through any inhomogeneous structure (e.g., a photonic crystal),
whether or not the waves are confined to some region. In general, both types of dispersion may be
present, although they are not strictly additive. Their combination leads to signal degradation
in optical fibers used for telecommunications, because the varying delay in arrival time between
different components of a signal "smears out" the signal in time.
TYPES OF DISPERSION:
INTERMODAL DISPERSION:
Inter Modal dispersion is a distortion mechanism occurring in multimode fibers and other waveguides, in
which the signal is spread in time because the propagation velocity of the optical signal is not the same
for all modes. Other names for this phenomenon include multimode distortion, multimode
dispersion, modal distortion, intermodal distortion,intermodal dispersion, and intermodal delay
distortion.
In the ray optics analogy, modal dispersion in a step-index optical fiber may be compared to multipath
propagation of a radio signal. Rays of light enter the fiber with different angles to the fiber axis, up to the
fiber's acceptance angle. Rays that enter with a shallower angle travel by a more direct path, and arrive
sooner than rays that enter at a steeper angle (which reflectmany more times off the boundaries of the
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core as they travel the length of the fiber). The arrival of different components of the signal at different
times distorts the shape.
Modal dispersion limits the bandwidth of multimode fibers. For example, a typical step-index fiber with a
50 m core would be limited to approximately 20 MHz for a one kilometer length, in other words, a
bandwidth of 20 MHzkm. Modal dispersion may be considerably reduced, but never completely
eliminated, by the use of a core having a graded refractive index profile. However, multimode graded-
index fibers having bandwidths exceeding 3.5 GHzkm at 850 nm are now commonly manufactured for
use in 10 Gbit/s data links.
Modal dispersion should not be confused with chromatic dispersion, a distortion that results due to the
differences in propagation velocity of different wavelengths of light. Modal dispersion occurs even with
an ideal, monochromatic light source.
A special case of modal dispersion is polarization mode dispersion (PMD), a fiber dispersion
phenomenon usually associated with single-mode fibers. PMD results when two modes that normally
travel at the same speed due to fiber core geometric and stress symmetry (for example, two orthogonal
polarizations in a waveguide of circular or square cross-section), travel at different speeds due to
random imperfections that break the symmetry.
INTRA MODAL DISPERSION:
In fiber-optic communication, an intramodal dispersion, sometimes called material dispersion, is a
category of dispersionthat occurs within a single-mode.
[1]
This dispersion mechanism is a result of
material properties of optical fiber and applies to both single-mode and multi-mode fibers. There are
two distinct types of intramodal dispersion: chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion. n
silica, the index of refraction is dependent upon wavelength. Therefore different wavelengths will
travel down an optical fiber at different velocities. This implies that a pulse with a wider FWHM will
spread more than a pulse with a narrower FWHM. This dispersion limits both the bandwidth and the
dis nce that information can be supported. This is why for long communications links, it is desirable
to use a laser with a very narrow linewidth. Distributed Feedback (DFB) lasers are popular for
communications because they have a single longitudinal mode with a very narrow