Corning Incorporated
Optical fibers for single mode and few mode VCSEL-based optical fiber transmission systems

Abstract:

The optical fibers disclosed have single mode and few mode optical transmission for VCSEL-based optical fiber transmission systems. The optical fibers have a cable cutoff wavelength .lamda..sub.C of equal to or below 1260 nm thereby defining single mode operation at a wavelength in a first wavelength range greater than 1260 nm and few-mode operation at a wavelength in a second wavelength range from 840 nm and 1060 nm. The mode-field diameter is in the range from 8.6 microns to 11 microns at 1550 nm or in the range from 8.0 microns to 10.1 microns at 1310 nm. The optical fibers have an overfilled bandwidth OFL BW of at least 1 GHzkm at the at least one wavelength in the second wavelength range. The optical fibers have a gradient-index core and can have a trench refractive index profile. VCSEL based optical transmission systems and methods are disclosed that utilize both single core and multicore versions of the optical fiber.