Single channel transmission of NRZ 40 Gb/s through G. 652, G. 653 and G. 655 fibers for short-reach applications

We report a 40 Gb/s non-return to zero (NRZ) external modulation of a tunable external cavity laser for short-reach applications. Links comprising from 1.38 km to 4 km of standard (STD), 4 km of dispersion-shifted (DS) and 4 km to 6.5 km of non-zero dispersion shifted (NZD) fibers have been theoretical and experimentally tested. DS fiber transmission yields best results, with error-free operation, whilst 6.5 km of NZD leads to a power penalty of /spl sim/2.3 dB, at BER=10/sup -12/. Results for STD fiber links show severe degradation mainly attributed to dispersion effects. The optical path penalties have been theoretically estimated by using a system simulator based on the nonlinear Schrodinger equation.