Abstract

We observe complete switching of 310fsec soliton pulses in a fiber nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) but find that the transmission is reduced by the soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) effect. To show that solitons make possible more complete switching, Doran and Wood 1] first proposed the NOLM, which consists of a four-port directional coupler in which two ports on one side are connected by a loop of fiber. The device acts like a Mach-Zehnder interferometer whose two arms correspond to the two counter-propagating directions around the loop.

© 1989 Optical Society of America