Recent progress in soliton transmission technology

Recent progress on time-division multiplexed (TDM) and wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) soliton transmission is described, in which dispersion ma nagement plays an important role in increasing the power margin and the dis persion tolerance. The characteristics of the dispersion-managed soliton ar e compared with those of return to zero and nonreturn to zero pulses. With a small dispersion swing, the system can still be described as an average s oliton using the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, while with a large dispers ion swing, the solitonlike steady-state pulse becomes a chirped Gaussian pu lse, in which the governing equation is closer to a linear Schrodinger equa tion with a parabolic potential well. We describe an in-line modulation sch eme for up to 80 Gbit/s per channel and its two channel WDM transmission ov er 10 000 km. Finally, we describe 640 Gbit/s (40 Gbit/sx16 channels) WDM s oliton transmission over 1000 km with a dispersion-managed single-mode fibe r. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S1054-1500(00)02403-4].