A system is described that includes a system for correcting modal dispersion and errors in
an optical fiber system. The system includes a multisegment photodetector coupled to an
end of an optical fiber for detecting optical signals exiting the optical fiber and for converting
the optical signals to an electrical output, the multisegment photodetector including a
plurality of photodetector regions configured such that one of the plurality of photodetectors
regions intercepts a mode in a manner distinct from another of the plurality of …

Multimode fiber links suffer from intermodal dispersion, which, at high data rates, produces
intersymbol interference in the received optical signal. Without signal processing or
equalization, this limits the achievable data rates. We consider the combination of a spatially
resolved equalizer (SRE)(in the optical domain) and forward error correction (FEC) to
increase the achievable data rates and reliability on these links. Our performance results
obtained with actual measured impulse responses show that SRE and FEC on a multimode …