Abstract

The potential application in fibre optical communication systems has stimulated research into high repetition rate sources of solitons. Several schemes have been suggested, see for example the references quoted in [1]. One such method proposed the use of the cw beat signal derived from two frequencies for the generation of a cw train of solitons at repetition frequencies in the Gigahertz regime [1,2]. The transformation of the beat signal into a train of solitons results from the nonlinear propagation in an optical fibre exhibiting a slow amplification or decreasing dispersion along the length. The combined effect of the self-phase modulation and group velocity dispersion, influenced by weak amplification or the decreasing dispersion of the fibre leads to a reshaping of the sinusoidal beat signal into solitons and to pulse compression, with the repetition frequency of the generated soliton pulse train equal to the frequency difference between the two input modes. Theoretical analysis has shown that using this technique, a cw train of high quality, well separated solitons can be generated with negligible pedestal component.

© 1992 The Author(s)