Effect of fifth-order nonlinearity in refractive index on Gaussian pulse propagation in lossy optical fibers

Abstract

The effect of fifth-order nonlinearity in refractive index on Gaussian pulse propagation in lossy optical fibers is considered. It is shown that fifth-order nonlinearity considerably modifies the pulse propagation, as a result of which the frequency at which the reshaping of the pulse should be done to have a distortionless propagation is reduced significantly (by a factor of about 3 compared with the case of cubic nonlinearity). The peak power for which fifth-order nonlinearity becomes significant is of the same order of magnitude that is required for cubic nonlinearity.