Dispersion-managed transmission of 100 Gb/s time-division mutiplexed return-to-zero format data

摘要

Dispersion-managed solitons have proven to be an effective carrier for moderate data rate long-distance communication links. This method has developed rapidly with dispersion-managed soliton rates as high as 40 Gb/s being successfully transmitted over thousands of kilometers [1, 2]. At higher data rates the short bit period leads to increasing pulse-to-pulse interaction due to the oscillatory evolution of the pulsewidth within a map period. Recent theoretical work has shown that dense dispersion-management-a reduction in the map period relative to the amplifier spacing-is an attractive means for overcoming this limitation at the higher data rates [3]. Simulations have indicated that single channel rates as high as 100 Gb/s transmitted over 1000 km are possible [4, 5]. We demonstrate a 100 Gb/s data stream transmitted over 100 km using dense dispersion-management. This represents the first experimental demonstration of dense dispersion-managed pulse transmission. Numerical simulations incorporating parameters identical to those of the experiment indicate the feasibility of extending this system to distances in excess of 1000 km.