Compensation of fibre chromatic dispersion in optical heterodyne detection

Compensation of fibre chromatic dispersion in coherent optical fibre transmission is demonstrated. The chromatic dispersion of a 70km single-mode fibre with 1.3μm zero dispersion wavelength is compensated for using a microstrip line equaliser in the intermediate frequency band. Amplitude distortion due to fibre chromatic dispersion at 1.55μm wavelength is reduced to below 2.5% with the equaliser.