The polarization dependence of femtosecond soliton-soliton interactions is investigated in detail. When the polarization direction of two solitons is orthogonal, the soliton interaction can be reduced in comparison to that for parallel polarization. The soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) is still observed even in the orthogonal condition, but the quantity of the SSFS is much smaller than in the parallel condition. A stronger soliton interaction is observed between two solitons in an in-phase condition, than in an out-of-phase condition. The largest SSFS occurs in-phase with parallel polarization. The polarization dependence of femtosecond soliton interaction in a distributed erbium-doped fiber amplifier (DEDFA) is also investigated. It is shown that when the optical gain of the DEDFA is given adiabatically, the input pulse separation at which the first soliton occurs is less with orthogonal polarization. This is because the soliton pulse width is reduced due to the adiabatic soliton narrowing caused by the optical amplification.

Optical soliton transmissions at 10 and 20Gbit/s over 1000km with the use of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers are described in detail. For the 10Gbit/s experiment, a bit error rate (BER) of below 110-13 was obtained with 220-1 pseudorandom patterns and the power penalty was less than 0.1dB. In the 20Gbit/s experiment optical multiplexing and demultiplexing techniques were used and a BER of below 110-12 was obtained with 223-1 pseudorandom patterns under a penalty-free condition. A new technique for sending soliton pulses over ultralong distances is presented which incorporates synchronous shaping and retiming using a high speed optical modulator. Some experimental results over 1 million km at 7.210Gbit/s are described. This technique enables us to overcome the Gordon-Haus limit, the accumulation of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), and the effect of interaction forces between adjacent solitons. It is also shown by computer runs and a simple analysis that a one hundred million km soliton transmission is possible by means of soliton transmission controls in the time and frequency domains. This means that limit-free transmission is possible.

Recent progress on photonic crystal fibers is reviewed aiming at their application to high performance networks. A photonic crystal fiber has an array of air holes surrounding the silica core region. Light is confined to the core by the refractive index difference between the core and the array of air holes. Photonic crystal fibers have special characteristics compared with conventional single mode fibers. One is that the dispersion characteristics can be designed. Another characteristic, that strong birefringence can be established by sizing and/or arranging the air holes, is expected to realize a polarization maintaining fiber with high birefringence of the order of 110-3. This paper will describe the characteristics of dispersion controlled PCFs and polarization maintaining PCFs that include supercontinuum generation and absolute single polarization characteristics for various types of optical devices in high performance network systems.

Soliton transmission control has already proved to be an outstanding technique and enable a soliton to be transmit over one million kilometers. This technique is not only applicable to vast distances but also to shorter distances where the amplifier spacing is greater than that of conventional systems. A combination of time and frequency domain control eliminates the noise accumulation and timing jitter caused by soliton interaction and the Gordon-Haus effect, that are the main impediments to extending the transmission distance. In this paper we describe soliton control techniques applied over an astronomical transmission distance of 180,000,000 km, and to a terrestrial system with a large amplifier spacing of up to 100km. We also report the possibility of realizing a sub-tera bit/s soliton transmission system operating over more than 5,000 km in which the soliton self-frequency shift is controlled with the soliton control technique.

Triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, the authors have been studying a resilient network whose key element is a movable and deployable ICT resource unit. The resilient network needs a function of robust and immediate connection to a wide area network active outside the damaged area. This paper proposes an application of digital coherent technology for establishing optical interconnection between the movable ICT resource unit and existing network nodes through a photonic network, rapidly, easily and with the minimum in manual work. We develop a prototype of a 100Gbit/s digital coherent transponder which is installable to our movable and deployable ICT resource unit and experimentally confirm the robust and immediate connection by virtue of the plug and play function.

We describe the first highly nonlinear dispersion-flattened polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber designed for nonlinear optics applications in the 1.55 µm region. The nonlinear coefficient of the fiber is 19 (W-1km-1), which is ten times that of dispersion shifted fiber. The chromatic dispersion and dispersion slope of the fiber at 1.55 µm are -0.23 ps/km/nm and 0.01 ps/km/nm2, respectively. We demonstrate the generation of a supercontinuum using the photonic crystal fiber. A symmetrical supercontinuum over 40 nm is obtained by injecting 1562 nm, 2.2 ps, and 40 GHz optical pulses into the 200 m-long photonic crystal fiber.

Recently, most of the difficult problems which prevented the realization of soliton communication have been solved by using the so-called erbium-doped optical fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). These amplifiers can provide a larger gain with a lower pumping power than the Raman process. In this paper, we describe how we were able to realize an actual soliton transmission system which utilizes lumped amplifiers instead of distributed amplifiers. A data transmission experiment at 10 Gbit/s 300 km is presented.