We demonstrate fast characterization (~1.4 microseconds) of both the
dispersion and dispersion slope of long optical fiber links (~25 km) using dual
quadrature spectral interferometry with an optical frequency comb. Compared to
previous spectral interferometry experiments limited to fiber lengths of
meters, the long coherence length and the periodic delay properties of
frequency combs, coupled with fast data acquisition, enable spectral
interferometric characterization of fibers longer by several orders of
magnitude. We expect that our method will be useful to recently proposed
lightwave techniques like coherent WDM and to coherent modulation formats by
providing a real time monitoring capability for the link dispersion. Another
area of application would be in stabilization of systems which perform
frequency and timing distribution over long fiber links using stabilized
optical frequency combs.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Minor changes to tex
