Abstract
The issues involved in employing nonlinear optical loop mirrors (NOLMs) as intensity filters in picosecond soliton transmission were examined in detail. It was shown that inserting NOLMs into a periodically amplified transmission line allowed picosecond solitons to be transmitted under conditions considered infeasible until now. The loop mirrors gave dual function, removing low-power background dispersive waves through saturable absorption and applying a negative feedback mechanism to control the amplitude of the solitons. The stochastic characteristics of the pulses that were due to amplifier spontaneous-emission noise were investigated, and a number of new properties were determined. In addition, the mutual interaction between pulses was also significantly different from that observed for longer-duration solitons. The impact of Raman scattering in the computations was included and it was shown that soliton self-frequency shifts may be eliminated by appropriate bandwidth restrictions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1117-1125 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of the Optical Society of America B |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 1995 |
Keywords
- nonlinear optical loop mirror
- saturable absorbers
- picosecond soliton transmission systems
- optical amplifier
- self-frequency shift
- bandwidth filtering