Dispersion penalty for lightwave systems with multimode semiconductor lasers operating near the zero-dispersion wavelength of single- mode fibers.

The effect of dispersion on the performance of lightwave systems is analyzed for the case wherein multimode semiconductor lasers operating near the zero-dispersion wavelength (ZDWL) of the singlemode fiber are used as sources. Both the intersymbol interference and the mode-partition noise are considered in the discussion of dispersion-induced power penalties, with the latter dominating. The theory is compared with an experiment in which the bit rate is varied to establish the appropriate value for one of the parameters in the theory. The tolerable limits on the deviation of the laser wavelength from the ZDWL are then obtained for a 1.3micron system operating at 1.7Gb/s and a 1.56micron system operating at 600 Mb/s after including the effects of aging-induced wavelength shifts. Monte-Carlo simulations are used to predict the effects of such shifts on the performance of lightwave communication systems.