Pulse transmission measurements for determining near optimal profile gradings in multimode borosilicate optical fibers.

Dispersive differences between B(2)O(3) and SiCO(2) constituents make nonparabolic profiles optimal equalizers of intermodal group delays in fibers with graded B(2)O(3)-SiO(2) cores and uniform B(2)O(3)-SiO(2) cladding. Pulse dispersion measurements were correlated with profile shapes in a systematic study of multimode fibers with near power law gradients. Far field spatial ray filters were used to diagnose impulse response shapes so that new fibers could be fabricated with closer-to-optimal profile gradients. One of the fibers had an alpha approximately 1.77 power law exponent that was nearly optimal for lambda = 907.5-nm wavelength and caused 2sigma = 0.26-nsec/km full rms output pulse spreading. When expected material dispersion effects were deconvolved from the output pulse spreading, the resultant pulse width was approximately 75 times less than the result expected for a comparable step-index fiber. This is the largest pulse width reduction reported yet.