Online chromatic dispersion monitoring and compensation using a single inband subcarrier tone

In this letter, we demonstrate a simple technique for dispersion monitoring by adding a single inband subcarrier tone to the transmitted data signal. A measurable dispersion of up to 1200 ps/nm is demonstrated in a 10-Gb/s channel using a 7-9 GHz subcarrier and the addition of the subcarrier induced a power penalty of <0.5 dB. Dynamic ranges exceeding 20 dB and resolution sensitivities better than 10 (ps/nm)/dB are shown. With an 8-GHz tone and a 15% modulation depth for 10-Gb/s signals, we show a measurement range of 975 ps/nm with a 22-dB dynamic range. We used the monitor output signal to achieve accurate tunable dispersion compensation.