Abstract

Recently we have shown that stable soliton-like pulse propagation over ultra-long distances is possible in a nonlinear fiber line in which linear loss is balanced by periodic phase-sensitive (parametric) amplification.¹ In such a line the length scale over which pulse evolution occurs is significantly increased beyond a soliton period because of the attenuation of phase variations across the pulse’s profile by the amplifiers. Here we examine the effects of quantum noise in the context of a storage ring for a bit stream of soliton-like pulses. We show that the one’s (soliton pulses) are asymptotically stable and the noise on the zero’s of the bit stream (absence of a soliton) is bounded. Moreover, we present evidence that the soliton-soliton interaction and Raman self-frequency shift are efficiently suppressed by the phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSA’s). The effects of direct timing noise and cubic dispersion in the fiber could also be decreased by using a pulsed pump (gain modulation) for the PSA’s.

© 1995 Optical Society of America