Realization of the scale of high fiber optic power at three national standards laboratories.

Nowadays the transmission powers in optical telecommunication networks are often hundreds of milliwatts. Such high power levels are known to cause several nonlinear effects, thus affecting data transfer. Therefore, accurate measurements of such high power levels are required. The general issues that are to be considered when one is realizing a scale for high fiber optic power are discussed. The scales of the national standards laboratories in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark are described, and the results of a trilateral comparison of these scales are presented. The power range of the comparison was 1-200 mW. The results show that the stated measurement uncertainties of the three laboratories (1.3%-2.9%, k = 2) are applicable over this power range.