European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization

Optical fibres - Part 1-42: Measurement methods and test procedures - Chromatic dispersion
 N EN 60793-1-42

Annotation

This part of IEC 60793 establishes uniform requirements for measuring the chromatic dispersion of optical fibre, thereby assisting in the inspection of fibres and cables for commercial purposes.

Chromatic dispersion varies with wavelength. Some methods and implementations measure the group delay as a function of wavelength and the chromatic dispersion and dispersion slope are deduced from the derivatives (with respect to wavelength) of this data. This differentiation is most often done after the data are fitted to a mathematical model. Other implementations can allow direct measurement (of the chromatic dispersion) at each of the required wavelengths.

For some (sub-) categories of fibre, the chromatic dispersion attributes are specified with the parameters of a specific model. In these cases, the relevant recommendation or standard defines the model appropriate for the definition of the specified parameters. For other fibre (sub-) categories, the dispersion is specified to be within a given range for one or more specified wavelength intervals. In the latter case, either direct measurements may be made at the wavelength extremes or some fitting model may be used to either allow group delay measurement methods or implementations, or to allow storage of a reduced set of parameters that may be used to calculate the interpolated dispersion for particular wavelengths which may not have actual direct measurement values.

Annex D gives a general description of chromatic dispersion fitting and outlines a number of fitting equations suitable for use with any of the measurement methods or fibre categories.

This standard gives three methods for measuring chromatic dispersion: