MULTI-THOUSAND KILOMETER OPTICAL SOLITON DATA-TRANSMISSION EXPERIMENTS AT 5-GB S USING AN ELECTROABSORPTION MODULATOR PULSE-GENERATOR/

We have demonstrated the transmission of data-coded optical soliton pu lse at the bit-rate of 5 Gb/s over a few thousand kilometers. Ultra-sh ort optical pulses generated with a sinusoidally driven electroabsorpt ion modulator and a DFB-LD that were approximately hyperbolic-secant s quared shape were transmitted through the fiber. Both recirculating lo op transmission lines and straight transmission lines were used for th e experiments. The pulse width was maintained well over 6,000-km trans mission in the recirculating loop experiment. Three-thousand-km stable transmission was achieved using a straight-line setup at the bit-rate of 5 Gb/s, although the average fiber chromatic dispersion deviated s lightly from the optimum value. The results indicate the possibility o f the soliton transmission system for multi-thousand-km optical commun ication systems.