Reduced-power optical solitons in fiber lines with short-scale dispersion management

We examine the properties of dispersion-managed (DM) solitons in fiber lines with dispersion-compensation period L much shorter than amplification distance Z(a). DM solitons in systems with short-scale dispersion compensation have reduced power compared with DM solitons in previously studied regimes with L greater than or equal to Z(a) power (for the same local and average dispersion and the same pulse width). As a result, chirped DM soliton transmission with reasonably low power can be realized with shorter pulses when DM solitons in systems with large L/Z(a) ratios have energies that are too high to be used in practice. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 060.5530, 060.2330, 260.2030, 320.1590.