Evolution of Self-similar Parabolic Pulses In Optical Fiber Amplifiers

We simulated the evolution of self-similar parabolic pulses (similaritons) in a normally dispersive fiber amplifier. The rate of development of a Gaussian pulse into the asymptotic parabolic regime has been studied. The model has been applied to an optical transmission system with a fiber amplifier. By calculating the Q-factor, we numerically determined the signal to noise performance of the pulse train along fiber length. For the parameters we used, a 6m long fiber amplifier with 20 dB gain is capable of amplifying 200Gb/s initial chirp-free Gaussian pulses of duration 0.4ps with no distortion and additional noise. The trade-off between pulse width and amplifier length has been studied.