Measurement of anomalous dispersion in microstructured fibers using spectral modulation

We report on a simple technique to measure the anomalous dispersion of small-core microstructured fibers using short optical pulses. The method relies on the spectral modulation resulting from the evolution of the input pulse into a propagating soliton wave. The technique allows for a direct measurement of the dispersion at the desired wavelength from a single pulse. The measurement error is estimated to be less than 10%.