Abstract

The process of femtosecond soliton amplification with erbium doped single mode fibers is determined by a complex interplay between fiber dispersion, the intensity dependent refractive index, the Raman effect and the finite bandwidth of the amplifier. Moreover, recent experiments have shown that the soliton evolution in the amplifier may be strongly affected by the depletion of pump light along the fiber. In particular, in contrast with the cw case, the spectral and temporal properties of the amplified femtosecond signal, and the degree of energy conversion from the pump are drastically different with either forward or backward pumping [1].

© 1992 Optical Society of America