Long span repeaterless transmission using adiabatic solitons

We demonstrate transmission of 10 Gb/s data over 296 km without inline ampl ification using adiabatically propagating optical solitons as the data carr ier. Adiabatic soliton propagation suppresses the deleterious effects of se lf-phase modulation and stimulated Brillouin scattering, allowing higher op tical powers at the transmitter. The system power budget is also enhanced b y the narrowing of the optical bandwidth under adiabatic propagation, allow ing improved receiver sensitivity, We show that the technique may ultimatel y enable repeaterless spans in excess of 500 km.