Picosecond soliton transmission using concatenated nonlinear optical loop-mirror intensity filters

Abstract

We investigate the use of nonlinear optical loop mirrors as saturable absorbers in picosecond soliton transmission systems. It is found that they allow short (1 – 5-ps) pulses to be propagated through chains of optical amplifiers spaced at intervals of typically 10 km. The loop mirror removes dispersive waves and stabilizes the peak amplitude of the soliton. An additional advantage is that the self-frequency shift of the soliton may be suppressed by bandwidth filtering without causing growth of dispersive waves at the center of the passband. The timing jitter and soliton interactions present in the scheme are also described.