Experimental Investigation of Dark Solitons Interaction

Abstract

Temporal dark optical solitons are stable odd solutions of the Nonlinear Schroedinger Equation describing the propagation, of a spatially single-mode plane wave in presence of normal (or positive) Group Velocity Dispersion (GVD) and Self-induced Phase Modulation (SPM). Such propagation of temporal dark signal in single-mode optical fibers has, after some pioneering experimental demonstrations in the visible region of the spectrum, received much attentions1. Simulations predicting the possibility of optically amplifying dark solitons2, on one hand, and establishing their stability with respect to the Gordon-Haus jitter effect in ultralong amplified systems3, on the other hand, opened the telecommunication domain as a potential field of applications for negative pulses. Recently, single dark pulse propagation experiments, with telecommunication compatible parameters (picosecond duration, infrared wavelength and 1km fiber), were reported4. In this paper, as a first step to a study of soliton sequences, we present experimental observations of the propagation of truncated dark pulse pairs.