Experimental study of soliton transmission over more than 10,000 km in dispersion-shifted fiber

Abstract

Transmission of 50-psec solitons in a 75-km recirculating loop of dispersion-shifted fiber (D = 1.38 psec/nm/km at lambda(s)), using low-gain erbium amplifiers spaced 25 km apart, displays jitter in pulse arrival times consistent with low error rates for transmission over 9000 km and for bit rates ?4 Gbits/sec. Furthermore, a study of soliton pair propagation in the same loop shows no significant interaction over 9000 km for pair spacings >/=5tau.