Abstract

Solitons of light-wave envelopes in fibers, now commonly called optical solitons, were among the first solitons to be discovered. The existence of optical solitons was predicted in 1973 and confirmed by experiment in 1980. In the intervening twenty years, attempts to employ optical solitons in ultrahigh-speed communication systems have been rendered difficult by the fact that public demand for higher speed and longer distance transmission have grown at an unexpectedly rapid rate.

[Optical Society of America ]