Optical Fiber Chromatic Dispersion — Pulse Broadening Simulator (2D)

A light pulse sent down an optical fiber is never a single pure frequency: its finite duration forces it to carry a spread of wavelengths, and because the fiber's refractive index depends on wavelength, those components travel at slightly different group velocities. This 2D time-domain companion visualizes the practical consequence directly on a data stream — a train of Gaussian bit pulses broadens as it propagates, quantitatively following Δt(L) = √(Δt₀² + (D·L·Δλ)²), until neighboring pulses start to overlap into real inter-symbol interference. A live eye diagram shows exactly how closed the eye gets, and a numerically root-found maximum error-free distance shows how far the chosen bit rate can travel before dispersion — not attenuation — is what limits the link, the same trade-off engineers manage with dispersion-compensating fiber and Bragg gratings in every long-haul telecom system.