Energy enhancement of short-period dispersion-managed solitons

Summary form only given. In nonlinear optical communication systems, the improvement in performance achieved by dispersion-managed (DM) solitons compared to conventional solitons is widely known. The use of short pulses in conventional dispersion-managed systems, for a realistic map strength (S), causes the local dispersions (/spl beta//sub 1,11/) to approach the average dispersion for practical amplifier spacings. This limitation can be overcome by the use of short-period dispersion maps (SPDMs). The short-period dispersion management regime is characterized by the period of the dispersion management (Z/sub p/) being much shorter than the amplifier spacing (Z/sub a/), which is in contrast to conventional dispersion-management regime (Z/sub p//spl ges/Z/sub a/). A schematic representation of a SPDM is shown. We investigate the energy dependence of DM solitons in SPDMs by numerical simulation. We examine the effects of reducing the ratio Z/sub p/:Z/sub a/, whilst maintaining a fixed S and minimum pulse width. We then contrast the performance of SPDMs and conventional dispersion maps in a transmission simulation at 40 Gbit/s.