SOLITON TRANSMISSION ON OPTICAL FIBERS

Optical amplification has fundamentally changed the design of optical fibre transmission systems, especially transoceanic and other such lon g-haul systems. These changes have made it necessary to consider the c umulative effects of chromatic dispersion and self phase modulation as well as the effect of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise. In this context, transmission using solitons is an attractive alternative for high bitrate transmission. Its practical implementation is subjec t to limitations, however due primarily to non-linear interaction betw een signal and noise. Current research work is focused on overcoming t hese limitations, in particular through the introduction of on-line op tical processing techniques of varying degrees of sophistication. This article looks at results achieved by CNET.