3 |
Optical Solitons |
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The formation of solitons in optical fibers is the result of a balance between the negative (anomalous) group velocity dispersion (GVD) of the glass fiber, which occurs for wavelengths longer than 1.3 µm in a standard fiber, and the Kerr nonlinearity. The existence of fiber solitons was suggested for the first time by Hasegawa and Tappert [1], and it appeared soon as an ideal solution to the problem of pulse spreading caused by fiber dispersion.
After their first experimental observation by Mollenauer et al. [2], Hasegawa [3] made the imaginative proposal that solitons could be used in all-optical transmission systems based on optical amplifiers instead of regenerative repeaters, which were considered ...
