Long Wavelength LED Bandwidth of 62.5/125 micrometer Cables as a Function of Laser Bandwidth and LED Spectral Characteristics.

An empirical model has been developed that relates the long wavelength LED bandwidth of 62.5/125 micrometer cables to 1. 3 micrometer laser bandwidth and LED spectral characteristics. This model extends previous work performed on short section lengths for the Optical Data Link 200 (ODL 200) system to include the long section lengths used for the Fiber-SLC(TM) system. The model is based on 382 LED bandwidths measured on concatenated cables from 1.25 to 20.54 km long using nine LEDs with center wavelengths ranging from 1.285 to 1.345 micrometer and FWHM spectral widths ranging from 63 to 188 nm. Comparison of model predictions to 238 LED bandwidths measured in the laboratory and in two field installations show that the standard deviation of the measured bandwidths about the predicted bandwidths is 8 MHz.