Abstract

The first experiments on long-distance soliton transmission¹ revealed a strange long-range interaction between pulses. Shortly thereafter it was shown theoretically that this long-range interaction is due to the electrostrictive excitation of acoustic waves by light pulses and the subsequent interaction of light pulses with excited acoustic waves.² Further theoretical and experimental investigations showed that the acoustic effect significantly increases the soliton timing jitter in communication lines and limits both the bit rates and information transmission distances.³ This acoustically-induced pulse interaction does not only manifest itself in the long-distance soliton propagation; experiments on passively modelocked fiber ring lasers indicate the presence of a long-range interaction that can lead to regular pulse spacing inside the laser cavity.⁴ Theoretical calculations show that the acoustic interaction between passively modelocked pulses in fiber ring lasers are complicated and can cause pulse bunching or can stabilize periodic sequences of pulses.⁵

© 1996 Optical Society of America