Simultaneous Measurement of Chromatic and Modal Dispersion in FMFs Using Microwave Photonic Techniques

A microwave-photonic technique for measuring dispersion characteristics of few-mode fibers is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. We extract these dispersion parameters by sweeping the frequency of microwave signals modulated on an optical carrier. For the first time, simultaneous high-precision measurement of chromatic dispersion and modal dispersion are made possible. Experimental results obtained on a two-mode group fiber match well with simulation results, as well as those obtained using time-domain methods. The proposed scheme is scalable to measuring fibers with a large number of modes.