SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER SOURCES FOR SOLITON TRANSMISSION-SYSTEMS IN OPTICAL FIBERS

This paper presents two important methods used to generate soliton pulses from semiconductor laser sources for application to high-bit-rate (2.5-10 Gb/s) long-haul (6 000-9 000 km) optical fibre transmission systems : gain-switching and mode-locking in an external cavity. Experimental results are given for illustration in both cases. A particular attention is paid to the development of techniques which allow us to reach the Fourier-transform limit in the case of short pulses generated by gain-switching. An example of soliton propagation is shown in the case of pulses generated by mode-locking.