Dispersion
Author: the photonics expert Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta (RP)
Definition: the dependence of the phase velocity in a medium on the optical frequency or the propagation mode
Category:
- optical effects
- absorption
- birefringence
- diffraction
- dispersion
- dispersive waves
- evanescent waves
- Faraday effect
- focusing
- imaging
- interference
- optical aberrations
- optical phase shifts
- phase matching
- photodarkening
- polarization changes
- propagation losses
- reflection
- refraction
- scattering
- spatial walk-off
- superluminal transmission
- temporal walk-off
- thermal blooming
- thermal radiation
- total internal reflection
- wavefront distortions
- nonlinear optical effects
- electro-optic effect
- (more topics)
Related: chromatic dispersion intermodal dispersion polarization mode dispersion dispersion compensation waveguide dispersion pulse front tilt
Page views in 12 months: 1281
DOI: 10.61835/9vk Cite the article: BibTex BibLaTex plain text HTML Link to this page! LinkedIn
Content quality and neutrality are maintained according to our editorial policy.
Types of Dispersion
There are various types of dispersion, which all involve the dependence of the phase velocity or phase delay of light in some medium or device on some other parameter:
- Chromatic dispersion means that the phase velocity depends on the optical frequency or wavelength. This can result from a frequency-dependent refractive index, but also from waveguide dispersion.
- Intermodal dispersion results from different propagation characteristics of higher-order transverse modes in waveguides, such as multimode fibers. This effect can severely limit the possible data rate of a system for optical fiber communications based on multimode fibers.
- Polarization mode dispersion results from polarization-dependent propagation characteristics. It can be relevant in high data rate fiber-optic links based on single-mode fibers.
- As a result of chromatic dispersion, refraction angles at optical surfaces can be frequency-dependent, leading to angular dispersion. This is exploited e.g. in spectrometers with prism pairs or pairs of diffraction gratings. Also, one can obtain frequency-dependent path lengths, which can again act like chromatic dispersion. In that way, prism pairs and pairs of diffraction gratings can be used for dispersion compensation. Angular dispersion is also related to the phenomenon of pulse front tilt.
Questions and Comments from Users
Here you can submit questions and comments. As far as they get accepted by the author, they will appear above this paragraph together with the author’s answer. The author will decide on acceptance based on certain criteria. Essentially, the issue must be of sufficiently broad interest.
Please do not enter personal data here. (See also our privacy declaration.) If you wish to receive personal feedback or consultancy from the author, please contact him, e.g. via e-mail.
By submitting the information, you give your consent to the potential publication of your inputs on our website according to our rules. (If you later retract your consent, we will delete those inputs.) As your inputs are first reviewed by the author, they may be published with some delay.