Abstract

In 1989 it was shown that erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) are very useful for soliton amplification and transmission.1 Since then, many interesting results were reported and the soliton transmission technology has matured considerably through the use of EDFAs.^1~4 These amplifiers have been used to develop a new soliton communication method (Dynamic soliton, Guiding-center soliton, or Average soliton) for sending solitons over long distances using lumped optical amplifiers. The lumped amplifier technique using EDFAs made it possible to move the soliton communication into the developmental stage. This technique has a wide range of applicability from L_a (amplifier spacing) << Z_sp (soliton period) to L_a~Z_sp, depending on the maximum required transmission distance.

© 1993 Optical Society of America