ABSTRACT
The formation of solitons in optical fibers is the result of a balance between the negative group velocity dispersion of the glass fiber, which occurs for wavelengths longer than 1.3 µm in a standard fiber, and the Kerr nonlinearity. The nonlinear pulse that can propagate in an optical system is usually called the dispersion-managed soliton and presents several remarkable characteristics, namely, an enhanced pulse energy, reduced Gordon–Haus timing jitter, longer collision lengths, and greater robustness to polarization-mode dispersion. High-speed fiber-optic communication systems are generally limited both by the fiber nonlinearity and by the group dispersion, that causes the pulse broadening. However, since fundamental solitons are obtained by the balance between the group dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity, their width can be maintained over long distances. Fiber loss is the first perturbation affecting the soliton propagation and one of the main causes of signal degradation in long-distance fiber-optic communication systems.
