Dispersion management with fibre Bragg gratings

Dispersion management with fibre Bragg gratings is studied in a system with zero net dispersion at distances of megameters. The formation of multisoliton states of two and more solitons is observed at long enough distances. These multisoliton solutions present fixed values for the peak powers, phase difference and distance between adjacent pulses, and can propagate for long distances without deformation, being the noise amplification the ultimate limitation to propagation. The formation of these bound states is related to the combined action of nonlinear effects on the fibre link and higher order dispersion terms both on the fibre and the transfer function of the gratings. Higher order effects on the gratings, which are usually neglected, can acquire great relevance in schemes in which a very high number of gratings is used. The distance between peaks in the multisoliton state is lower than the typical interaction distance between adjacent solitons, so they could be used to increase the capacity of the channel.