Abstract

Long distance transmission using a chain of optical amplifiers is potentially much cheaper and faster than with conventional electronic regenerators. Erbium doped fiber amplifiers, with their low pump-power requirements, lack of pulse chirping, independence of gain on polarization, built in automatic gain control, and perfect compatibility with transmission fibers, have done much to make this "all-optical" approach truly practical. It can be shown, however, that the full capacity of such a system can be realized only by using solitons.

© 1991 Optical Society of America