Patent ID: 7747171

Claim:
A method for reducing impairment to an adiabatically chirped optical signal having main and subsidiary peaks, the signal propagating in an optical communication system, said method comprising the steps of: receiving an adiabatically chirped optical signal that has traversed one or more network components in the optical communication system, said optical signal having a parameter characteristic of signal quality that is reduced at least in part by a-second transmission slope accumulated in the one or more network components, wherein the second transmission slope decreases the extinction ratio between the main and subsidiary peaks of the adiabatically chirped optical signal; and optically filtering with an optical filter having a first transmission slope at least one wavelength of the adiabatically chirped optical signal to impart the first transmission slope at one or more select points along a transmission path of the communication system so that the first transmission slope increases the extinction ratio between the main and subsidiary peaks of the adiabatically chirped optical signal, wherein the first transmission slope denotes a transmission response having a local maximum that is spectrally aligned with the main peak of the adiabatically chirped optical signal and a local minimum that is spectrally aligned with the subsidiary peak of the adiabatically chirped optical signal.