Wavelength Multiplexed Solitons in Fiber Communication Systems.

Optical fiber is widely used for data communication because of its large bandwidth and low loss between the wavelengths of 1.2 and 1.6 mum. High -performance communication in fiber is often limited by dispersion or nonlinear effects as the bit rate or system length increases. Fortunately, a stable solution of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation, which describes pulse propagation in fiber, is the soliton pulse, which relies on both dispersion and fiber nonlinearity to ensure stable pulse propagation at high bit rates over thousands of kilometers. With the development of erbium amplifiers, soliton propagation is even more appealing, since optical amplifiers passively compensate fiber loss while solitons passively compensate fiber dispersion. To efficiently utilize fiber bandwidth, it may ultimately be necessary to use wavelength multiplexing. Soliton transmission on multiple frequencies, however, is complicated by nonlinear interactions--frequency (wavelength) shifts and velocity shifts--when solitons collide in the fiber. Consequently, it is thought that extensive wavelength multiplexing will be difficult to achieve with solitons. Through primarily analytical and numerical methods, this thesis examines such issues, predicting timing jitter, bit-error-rates, and performance in wavelength multiplexed soliton systems. It is demonstrated that wavelength multiplexing is likely to be the best alternative for achieving high aggregate throughput in a soliton communication system.