An historical review of application of optical solitons for high speed communications

The history of application of optical solitons for high speed communication s presents an interesting example of how an abstract mathematical concept h as been put into practical use. The historical development introduced in th is manuscript is divided into five stages: (1) historical background and th e discovery of the optical soliton, (2) the idea and demonstration of all o ptical soliton transmission systems, (3) identification of possible problem s, (4) demonstration of soliton control and (5) discovery of dispersion man aged optical solitons (DMS). Although there are many interesting related su bjects such as modulational instability, dark solitons, and spatial soliton s, the manuscript focuses only on the subject of primarily theoretical deve lopments of soliton based communications in fibers. (C) 2000 American Insti tute of Physics. [S1054-1500(00)00803-X].