Applications of solitons in transmission systems employing high launch

Abstract

A method for launching a high-power signal into anomalous-dispersion fiber without suffering excess spectral broadening and waveform distortion. A high-power signal is launched as very short optical solitons, typically with a pulse width of approximately 1 to 10 ps. The pulse width of the solitons will broaden adiabatically (or nearly adiabatically) as they propagate down the anomalous-dispersion fiber as the average power of the soliton decreases. At the same time, the optical spectrum will narrow. After some distance of travel, when the width of the pulses have broadened to a suitable duration and the average power has decreased to a point where penalties from nonlinearities are insignificant, the pulses enter a significantly linear propagation regime with first order dispersion near zero. A dispersion-shifted fiber may be used or any additional dispersion can be compensated at the receiver. Consequently, no further significant broadening of the spectrum occurs when the signal is received at the receiver. Additionally, the initial wide spectrum of the solitons will result in a high stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold reducing the need for artificial broadening of the spectrum.