Limits for interchannel frequency separation in a soliton wavelength-division multiplexing system - art. no. 016609

We identify the required interchannel frequency separation of the input fie ld for a soliton wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system. It is found that the critical frequency separation above which WDM with solitons is fe asible increases with the number of transmission channels. Moreover, it is shown that a combination of time- and wavelength-division multiplexing yiel ds the largest transmission capacity. Finally, the structure of the soliton spectra which correspond to the frequency separation smaller than the crit ical frequency is discussed.