Abstract

Intense ultrashort pulses propagate in optical fibers under the influence of group velocity dispersion (GVD) and self-phase-modulation (SPM). Balancing these processes leads to optical solitons which propagate without distortion down long fiber lengths. Bright soliton propagation in the negative GVD portion of the spectrum has been investigated in great detail. In constrast, dark solitons, which are predicted for positive GVD [1], have been studied much less extensively [2]. In this paper we report experimental and numerical studies of nonlinear dark pulse propagation in fibers. By utilizing specially shaped, antisymmetric input pulses, we succeed for the first time in observing the fundamental dark soliton.

© 1988 Optical Society of America