POLARIZATION DEPENDENCE OF FEMTOSECOND SOLITON-SOLITON INTERACTIONS IN DISPERSION-SHIFTED FIBER

The polarization dependence of femtosecond soliton-soliton interaction in a dispersion-shifted fiber has been investigated in detail theoret ically and experimentally. For 400-fs soliton pulses the input pulse s eparation at which the soliton-soliton interaction occurs is 1.6 ps fo r orthogonally polarized solitons as opposed to 2.3 ps when the polari zations are parallel. Similar to that in the parallel condition, the s oliton self-frequency shift in the orthogonal case is accelerated thro ugh soliton-soliton interaction. However, the magnitude of the soliton self-frequency shift is reduced to one third of that in the parallel condition.