Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106

www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Fundamental properties of dispersion-managed solitons

in systems with lumped frequency-sliding filters
a,*
T. Mayteevarunyoo , Boris A. Malomed b, P.L. Chu c, A. Roeksabutr a

a
Department of Telecommunication Engineering, Mahanakorn University of Technology, Bangkok 10530, Thailand
b
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
c
Department of Electronics Engineering, Optoelectronics Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Received 4 May 2003; received in revised form 9 September 2003; accepted 10 September 2003

Abstract

By means of systematic numerical simulations, we investigate dynamical characteristics of dispersion-managed

(DM) solitons in the system using lumped frequency-sliding (FS) filters to control transmission of the solitons. The most
fundamental characteristic of the system is the solitonÕs peak power as a function the DM map strength. A compre-
hensive set of such characteristics is produced at different values of the FS slope and path-average dispersion (PAD),
which may be anomalous, zero, and normal. Simultaneously, stability borders for the solitons are identified. The
borders are presented in the form of plots showing the largest DM map strength and FS slope, beyond which stable
solitons are not found. The efficiency of the system is also characterized by curves showing the excess gain, which is
necessary to compensate the loss incurred by the filters, vs. the DM map strength, at different values of the FS slope and
PAD. Intra-channel interactions between solitons are studied too. It is concluded that the frequency-sliding does not
significantly affect the corresponding collision length in comparison with the case of fixed-frequency filters.
Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PACS: 42.81.Dp

Keywords: Soliton; Optical communication; Dispersion management

1. Introduction mission in fiber-optic telecommunication networks

Dispersion management (DM) is a well-known
technique which has a great potential for im-
proving many characteristics of the soliton trans-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +6629883655; fax: +66298
84040.
E-mail address: thawatch@mut.ac.th (T. Mayteevarunyoo).
[1–3]. In fact, DM is a generic feature of the de-
ployed long-haul fiber links, as they all are subject
to dispersion compensation. Another generic in-
gredient of the networks are guiding filters, which,
in the case of solitons, help to suppress their timing
jitter and interactions between them. For these
reasons, the interplay of DM and filters has
attracted considerable attention in both experi-
mental [4,5] and theoretical [6–8] studies.

0030-4018/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2003.09.032
100 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106
In many works, the filters were taken with a
sliding bandpass central frequency X of the filters,
i.e., X was varying linearly along the fiber link (this
arrangement of the filters was first proposed in [9]
as an effective means to separate solitons and
noise). However, still missing is a systematic study
of fundamental properties of DM solitons subject
to the action of lumped frequency-sliding filters,
such as relations between the solitonsÕ peak power
and DM map strength, the dependence of the
maximum frequency-sliding (FS) slope, which ad-
mits stable solitons, on the path-average value of
the GVD (group-velocity dispersion) in the link
and DM strength, etc. An objective of the present
work is to obtain such dynamical characteristics
for the DM solitons in the system controlled by
lumped FS filters. As the full model of this system
is too complex for consistent analytical consider-
ation (see below), we rely upon systematic nu-
merical simulations.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
we present formulation of the model. Results,
including the above-mentioned relations between
the solitonÕs peak power, DM map strength,
and the maximum FS slope, are given in Section 3.
At the end of Section 3, we also briefly display
results for intra-channel interactions between sol-
itons (which show that the frequency-sliding does
not significantly affect the maximum collision
length). Section 4 concludes the work.
2. Formulation of the model
The optical pulse propagation in a system
with varying dispersion and periodic lumped
amplification and filtering is governed by the
perturbed nonlinear Schr€
odinger equation [1]. In
the dimensionless form the equation takes the
form
ou 1 o2 u
i þ DðzÞ 2 þ juj2 u
oz 2 ot
X

G being the FS slope of the filters in physical units of
¼i dðz
nzmap Þ ^
þ Fj u: ð1Þ
8:69
n
Here, the field envelope u is normalized so that
1=2
u ¼ Eðn2 x0 LD =Aeff cÞ , where E is the electric field
envelope in physical units, n2 ¼ 2:6  10
16 cm2 /W
is the Kerr coefficient in silica, x0 is the central
frequency, Aeff ¼ 75 lm2 is a typical value of the
effective fiberÕs cross-section area, and c is the
speed of light. Further, LD ¼ s20 =jbref j is a charac-
teristic dispersion length, where s0 is a character-
istic time scale for a soliton, which we chose to be
10 ps, and bref is a reference value of the GVD
coefficient, that we set to be equal to a typical
value of the average dispersion in the DM system,
)0.45 ps2 /km. The propagation distance z and
DM-map period zmap in Eq. (1) are Z=LD and
Lmap =LD , respectively, where Z and Lmap are the
distance and DM-map period in physical units.
The time t is normalized as t ¼ s=s0 , where s is the
local time in the reference frame moving with the
group velocity of the carrier wave.
Other quantities are normalized as follows:
DðzÞ ¼
bðzÞ=jbref j, where bðzÞ is the physical
GVD coefficient, G ¼ DgLD is the excess power
gain, necessary to compensate the filtering loss,
which is measured in dB [the numerical factor
appearing in Eq. (1) is 20/ln 10  8.69], where Dg is
the dimensional excess gain (which is measured in
units of the inverse length). On the right-hand side
of Eq. (1), F^j is the filtering operator correspond-
ing to filters with the Gaussian spectral transmis-
sion function, so that the jth filter transforms the
incoming signal in the Fourier space as follows:
uðxÞ ! F^j ðxÞuðxÞ
h i
2
 exp
aðx
Xj Þ uðxÞ; ð2Þ
where a ¼ LD =ð4p2 B2f s20 Lamp Þ is the normalized
positive parameter representing the filtering
strength, with Bf and Lamp being the filterÕs band-
width and spacing between adjacent filters. The FS
techniques assume that the central transmission
frequency of the given filter, Xj , varies linearly
along the link
Xj ¼ X0 þ jX0 zmap ; ð3Þ
0
where X ¼ 2ps0 f LD is the normalized FS slope, f 0
0
GHz/Mm. Note that in Eq. (1), the fiber loss is not
explicitly included in the model, as it is assumed
that it is compensated by the main part of the gain
provided by the amplifiers.
 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106
In this paper, we consider the transmission
scheme shown in Fig. 1. The distribution of the
GVD coefficient bðzÞ inside one period of the link,
0 < z < Lmap , is taken in the standard symmetric
form
8 lous-GVD segments (recall that, in the present
< ba ; 0 < z 6 Lmap =4;
bðzÞ ¼ bn ; Lmap =4 < z 6 3Lmap =4; ð4Þ
: for stable solitons will be presented in terms of P
ba ; 3Lmap =4 < z 6 Lmap ;
where bn > 0 and ba < 0 are values of the GVD
coefficient in the normal- and anomalous-GVD
segments (the nonlinearity coefficient is assumed to
be the same in both species of the fiber that form
the DM map). An important parameter of the
system is the path-average dispersion (PAD),
b  ðbn þ ba Þ=2, which may have either sign, but
its absolute value is assumed to be much smaller
than the local values jbn;a j. The amplifier and filter
are placed in the middle of the anomalous-GVD
segments, so that the amplification/filtering spac-
ing Lamp coincides with Lmap (as is known, placing
filters inside the normal-GVD segments gives rise
to instability of DM solitons [6]).
Basic characteristics of a solitary pulse are its
2
peak power, i.e., the value of P  juj at the pulseÕs
center, and the full-width at half-maximum
(FWHM), sFWHM . They are taken at points where
the soliton is narrowest, i.e., the peak power is
largest and width is smallest (usually, these are
midpoints of the anomalous-GVD segments). As is
well known, for DM solitons, both in the absence
L amp
Amplifier
βn
Filter
β (f 0 ¼ 107 GHz/Mm). As concerns the above-
βa
L
map
β : anomalous fiber
a
β : normal fiber
n
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the dispersion-managed
transmission line with lumped amplifiers and filters.
101
of filtering [2] and in the presence of it [8], the most
adequate dynamical characteristic is not the width
itself, but rather the DM map strength, which is

2
defined as follows: S ¼ ðbn Ln þ jba jLa ÞðsFWHM Þ ,
where Ln;a are lengths of the normal- and anoma-
setting, they are Ln ¼ La ¼ Lmap =2). Below, results
and S.
3. Simulation results
3.1. Dynamics of an isolated soliton
Fundamental dynamical properties of solitons
in the present model are described by plots which
summarize results extracted from many runs of
simulations of the soliton evolution in Eq. (1). The
simulations were performed by means of the
standard split-step method, launching a Gaussian
pulse, in the form of uð0; tÞ ¼ expð
t2 Þ, at the
midpoint of the anomalous-GVD segment ba . The
FWHM width of the initial pulse, sFWHM , DM-
map period, Lmap , and the filter bandwidth, Bf ,
were set to be, respectively, 11.77 ps, 40 km, and
265 GHz. With these parameters fixed, the gain G
in Eq. (1), the GVD coefficients bn;a in Eq. (4), and
the initial peak power of the soliton were varied, in
order to find stable soliton-propagation regimes.
The soliton was identified as a stable one if the
numerically simulated transmission remained
completely robust over, at least, 200 periods of the
system, i.e., 8000 km (in many cases, simulation
runs demonstrating stable solitons were much
longer). A typical example of the formation of a
stable soliton (in the case of zero PAD) is shown in
Fig. 2 for the following parameters: S ¼ 4:1; b ¼ 0;
G ¼ 0:0982 dB; Bf ¼ 265 GHz; and X0 ¼ 1:5
mentioned fixed values of the initial solitonÕs
width, DM-map period, and filter bandwidth,
simulations were also run at other values of these
parameters, which produced results very similar to
those displayed in this paper.
Both in the standard DM model without fil-
tering [2], and in its generalization including fixed-
frequency filters [8], the most fundamental set of
102 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106
Fig. 2. An example of the formation of a stable soliton from an
initial Gaussian pulse in the case of zero path-average disper-
sion, b ¼ 0, with S ¼ 4:1, X0 ¼ 1:5. Waveforms are plotted at
every five DM maps. This figure and all the ones displayed
below pertain to the value of the filter bandwidth Bf ¼ 265
GHz.
dynamical characteristics of (stable) solitons is
represented by curves of P vs. S (peak power vs.
DM map strength), drawn at different fixed values
of the PAD b. In the case of the DM system
without filtering, these curves reveal a drastic dif-
ference between the cases of the anomalous, zero,
and normal PAD, i.e., b < 0, b ¼ 0, and b > 0,
respectively, the curves P ðSÞ pertaining to b < 0
and b > 0 being separated by the one for b ¼ 0. In
particular, in the limit of small P (a quasi-linear
DM system), b ¼ 0 corresponds to S ¼ Scr  3:9
[2] (an analytical variational approximation pre-
dicts Scr  4:8 [3]), and the solitons at anomalous
and normal PAD exist, respectively, with S < Scr
and S > Scr . With the increase of P , the border
between the anomalous- and normal-PAD regions,
Scr ðP Þ, shifts to larger values of S [2]. At very large
values of S (roughly, S > 10) all the DM solitons
loose their stability, both for P ! 0 and finite P
[2,3,10].
A qualitative difference of the situation in the
DM model with the fixed-frequency filtering from
that outlined above is that the critical value of the
DM map strength S no longer exists in the filtered
model. Instead, there appears a critical value Pcr ðSÞ
of the solitonÕs peak power: at a given value of S,
it separates the existence regions, P > Pcr and
P < Pcr , respectively, of stable anomalous-PAD
and normal-PAD solitons [8] (in [8], this result was
obtained for the model with uniformly distributed
filtering, but the same conclusion remains true in
the case of lumped filters). At very large values of
S, the solitons become unstable, similar to the
unfiltered model.
Sets of the characteristics P ðSÞ for the solitons
in the present model are shown, for three different
values of PAD, b ¼
0:1; 0, and +0.1 ps2 /km, in
Figs. 3(a)–(c), respectively. In each panel, the
curves are distinguished by the value of the FS
slope X0 . The curves in Fig. 3 are not aborted ar-
bitrarily; in fact, each one terminates at a point
beyond which no stable soliton could be found in
simulations.
In each panel in Fig. 3, curves pertaining to
different values of X0 drastically differ in the loca-
tion of the termination point. Obviously, this is an
important feature specific to the FS-filtered sys-
tem. It is quantified by plots showing the largest
value of the FS slope, X0max , vs. S (Fig. 4), and the
largest value of the DM map strength, Smax , vs. X0
(Fig. 5), up to which stable solitons can be found.
In both these figures, the curves terminate (as well
as in Fig. 3) at points beyond which stable solitons
do not exist.
It is noteworthy that, in Fig. 5, Smax decreases
almost exactly linearly with X0 , and in the limit of
the fixed-frequency filtering, i.e., X0 ¼ 0, all the
lines in this figure converge almost to one point.
The latter observation implies that, in the DM
system with the lumped fixed-frequency filters, the
largest value of the DM strength, Smax , which ad-
mits the existence of stable solitons is nearly con-
stant (as concerns its dependence on the PAD
coefficient b). Although the present work is
focused on the FS system, we have specially in-
vestigated the dependence Smax ðbÞ in the fixed-
frequency model, to verify that it indeed complies
with the expectation, see Fig. 6. We have also
checked that, in the limit X0 ! 0, the characteris-
tics P ðSÞ shown in Fig. 3 precisely carry over into
those in the fixed-frequency-filtering model.
It is relevant to mention that some analytical
prediction for the maximum FS slope admitting
the existence of stable solitons was obtained in [7]
by means of an approach combining the varia-
tional approximation for DM solitons and balance
 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106 103

Ω′ = 0
′
Ω = 1.4
Ω ′ = 1.9 –0.1

20 2

–0.2
–0.4 0 ps 2/km
Normalized Power, P

1.5
15
0.1

max
Ω′
0.3
1
10

0.5
5

0
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(a) Map Strength, S

Fig. 4. The maximum value of the frequency-sliding slope, up

25
Ω′ = 0 to which stable solitons can be found in simulations, vs. the DM
Ω ′ = 1.5 map strength for anomalous, zero, and normal path-average
dispersion (diamonds, circles, and squares, respectively).
20
Normalized Power, P

15

10
6

5
S max

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(b) Map Strength, S

2
25
Ω′ = 0
Ω ′ = 0.6
′
Ω =1

20
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Normalized Power, P

15 Fig. 5. The maximum value of the DM map strength, up to

which stable solitons are found in simulations, vs. the frequency-
sliding slope for anomalous, zero, and normal path-average
10 dispersion (dashed, dotted, and solid curves, respectively).

5
equation for the solitonÕs energy, in order to take
the filtering and compensating gain into regard. In
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
particular, it was predicted that the maximum
(c) slope had to scale inversely proportional to the
Fig. 3. The normalized peak power of the DM soliton vs. the
PAD coefficient, and be independent of S. It is
DM map strength for the different frequency-sliding slope X0 . seen from Fig. 4 that X0max indeed decreases with
The panels (a)–(c) correspond, respectively, to b ¼
0:1 ps2 / the absolute value of PAD, although the depen-
km, b ¼ 0 ps2 /km, and b ¼ þ0:1 ps2 /km. dence is essentially less steep than the inverse
104 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106

esting features, elucidated by these plots, are the

existence of a maximum of X0max at a finite anom-
8
alous value of the PAD, and the fact that, contrary
to the expectation that all the characteristics con-
cerning the soliton stability must weaken in the
6
case of the normal PAD, Smax steeply grows with b
when it is positive. However, the curves in Fig. 7
4
terminate at the point (right edge) b  0:35 ps2 /
km. This value is an absolute limit for the case
considered here: no stable soliton can be found at
2
a still larger normal PAD if the DM-map period
and filter bandwidth are fixed as above, with
0
Lmap ¼ 40 km and Bf ¼ 265 GHz. On the contrary
–0.8 –0.6 –0.4 –0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
to this, there is no limit from the side of anomalous
PAD: the curves in Fig. 7 were aborted at b ¼
1
Fig. 6. The maximum value of the DM map strength, beyond
arbitrarily (investigation of the region with still
which stable solitons do not exist, vs. the path-average disper-
sion in the system with lumped fixed-frequency filters (no slid- larger values of
b does not reveal anything re-
ing). markable).
The original objective of introducing the FS
filters in soliton-transmission schemes was sup-
proportionality. However, our results show that, pression of the optical noise [9]. As is well known,
contrary to the case considered in [7], the depen- the main source of the noise is spontaneous emis-
dence of X0max on S is quite conspicuous. sion by amplifiers [1]. For this reason, an optimum
The data presented by dint of Figs. 3–5 can be design of the fiber link should minimize the gain
further summarized in the form of plots (Fig. 7) assigned to the amplifiers. Thus, another issue of
which show the values of the FS slope and DM considerable interest is dependence of the gain G,
map strength, at which particular curves displayed which is necessary to compensate the filtering loss
in Figs. 3–5 terminate for a given value of the PAD (see Eq. (1)), on relevant parameters. In the sim-
coefficient, as functions of this coefficient. Inter- ulations, the smallest value of G, which makes it
possible to support stable solitons, was sought for
at various values of S, b, and X0 . The results are
summarized in Fig. 8, the three panels of which
6 display G vs. S at different values of X0 , in the cases
of the anomalous, zero, and normal PAD. These
5
plots suggest that there is no drastic difference in
the necessary values of the compensating gain
Ω ′max , S max

S max
between the three cases.
3

2 Ω
′
max
3.2. Interaction between the solitons

1 Having investigated the dynamical characteris-

tics of the isolated DM soliton, the next natural
0
–1 –0.5 0 0.5 step is to examine interactions between them (in-
side the same wavelength channel; see, e.g. [11]).
Fig. 7. The maximum values of the sliding-frequency slope and Fig. 9 displays an example of the intra-channel
DM map strength, at which the curves in Figs. 3–5 terminate, as interaction between two DM solitons in the model
functions of the path-average dispersion. with fixed-frequency filters (X0 ¼ 0).
 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106 105

Ω′ = 0
Ω ′ = 1.4
Ω ′ = 1.9

0.15
G (dB)

0.1

0.05

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(a) Fig. 9. An example of the interaction between two DM solitons
in the system with fixed-frequency filters (X0 ¼ 0). Here,
0.2
Ω′ = 0 S ¼ 1:95, b ¼
0:45 ps2 /km, Bf ¼ 265 GHz, G ¼ 0:135 dB, and
Ω ′ = 1.5 the initial separation between the solitons is Ds ¼ 50 ps.

0.15

25
without filtering
Ω′ = 0
G (dB)

0.1
Ω′ = 0.2
Ω′ = 0.5
20 ′
Ω = 0.75
′
Ω =1

0.05
15
Lcoll (Mm)

0 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(b)
0.2
5
Ω′ = 0
Ω′ = 0.6
Ω′ = 1

0
0.15 0 1 2 3 4
Map Strength, S

Fig. 10. The collision length vs. the DM map strength in the
case of anomalous path-average dispersion, b ¼
0:45 ps2 /km,
G (dB)

0.1
for different values of the SF slope.

0.05 For different values of the FS slope X0 , we have

produced a dependence of the collision length,
Lcoll , on the DM map strength, fixing the PAD and
0 filter bandwidth, b ¼
0:45 ps2 /km and Bf ¼
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
(c) 265 GHz, respectively. The result is shown in
Fig. 10. As is seen, the FS significantly increases
Fig. 8. The excess gain, necessary to compensate the filtering
Lcoll (i.e., the maximum propagation distance
loss, as a function of the DM map strength, at different fixed
values of the frequency-sliding slope. The panels (a)–(c) per- beyond which the interaction will make the fiber-
tain to b ¼
0:1 ps2 /km, b ¼ 0 ps2 /km, and b ¼ þ0:1 ps2 /km, optic link unusable [11]) against the fixed-
respectively. frequency case only at small values of the DM
106 T. Mayteevarunyoo et al. / Optics Communications 227 (2003) 99–106
2.5
Gain (dB)
Map strength
max. collision length (107m)
2
S, G , Lcoll, max
1.5
1 filtering loss, vs. the DM map strength, at different
0.5
0 frequency-sliding.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
′
Ω
Fig. 11. The DM map strength, excess gain and maximum
collision length vs. the SF slope.
strength, S < 2, while in the range of S > 2 , which
is of major interest (see, e.g., Fig. 8), the FS does
not provide any improvement in this respect.
These results are presented in another useful
form in Fig. 11, which shows, simultaneously, the
values of the DM strength and excess gain, at
which particular curves in Fig. 10 attain a maxi-
mum of Lcoll , together with the corresponding
maximum of Lcoll itself, as a function of the SF
slope. From this figure too, we conclude that
making the filters frequency-sliding does not tan-
gibly affect the maximum collision length.
4. Conclusion
In this work, we have investigated in detail
dynamical characteristics of DM solitons in the
model where the transmission of pulses is con-
trolled by lumped frequency-sliding (FS) filters.
The most fundamental characteristic is the de-
pendence of the solitonÕs peak power vs. the DM
map strength. We have produced a comprehensive
set of such characteristics for different values of
the FS slope and path-average dispersion (PAD,
which may be anomalous, zero, and normal).
Simultaneously, borders of the solitonsÕ stability
region were delineated. The borders were de-
scribed by plots showing the maximum DM map
strength and FS slope, beyond which stable soli-
tons cannot be found. The efficiency of the system
was also characterized by curves showing the ex-
cess gain, which is necessary to compensate for the
values of the FS slope and PAD. We have also
found that the maximum collision length, which
characterizes the intra-channel interaction between
two solitons, is not significantly affected by the
1 1.2
Acknowledgements
T.M. and B.A.M. appreciate hospitality of
the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the
Department of Electronics Engineering, the City
University of Hong Kong.
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