Femtosecond soliton transmission characteristics in an ultralong erbium-doped fiber amplifier with different pumping configurations

The transmission characteristics of femtosecond optical solitons in an 18.2 km-long erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) have been investigated in detail by changing the pumping configuration. With backward pumping, a lossless transmission of 440 fs solitons at 1.55 μm has been realized with a pump power of 16 mW. The output pulsewidth is determined by the spectrum modified by the soliton self-frequency shift. In a bidirectional pumping configuration, 440-fs soliton pulses have been transmitted for a total pump power of 38 mW, where the output pulse width is determined by the original 1.55 μm spectrum. Although a femtosecond soliton is very weakly trapped in the EDFA-gain bandwidth of 1.55 μm and the soliton self-frequency shift inevitably occurs, the femtosecond pulse component still exists at 1.55 μm, and a pulse can be successfully transmitted with a gain of 11 dB and very little pulse broadening