Abstract

Soon after the first experimental demonstration of soliton transmission in optical fibers [1], it was predicted theoretically [2,3] that solitons can be transmitted over intercontinental distances in fiber where loss is periodically compensated by Raman gain. The predicted rate-length product for such transmission is on the order of 30,000 GHz-km for a single channel, and many times that figure with wavelength multiplexing [3]. Recently, in an experiment to explore the basic principles of such long distance, repeaterless transmission, we have achieved nearly distortionless transmission of 55 ps solitons over distances in excess of 4000 km.

© 1988 Optical Society of America