Universal conditions for estimating the nonlinear refractive index n2 of dispersion-compensating fibers by the CW-SPM method

We investigated universal conditions for measuring the nonlinear refractive index n/sub 2/ of dispersion-compensating fibers by the continuous wave self-phase modulation (CW-SPM) method both theoretically and experimentally. We showed that the required fiber length and the minimum power for n/sub 2/ estimation can be expressed as simple functions in terms of chromatic dispersion D. Moreover, we confirmed experimentally that the present conditions for n/sub 2/ estimation are reasonable.