Effect of third-order dispersion on soliton-effect pulse compression

Abstract

The effect of third-order dispersion on soliton-effect pulse compression is investigated. We show that third-order dispersion causes severe degradation in dispersion-shifted fibers in the compression of high-order soliton pulses. As much as an 80% reduction is found in the optimum compression ratio of 15th-order solitons of 1-ps width. We also show that fiber loss cannot be neglected in soliton-effect compression schemes, which gives rise to an initial pulse-width dependence in the compression ratio and to the existence of an optimum initial width.