Long-distance soliton transmission through ultralong fiber lasers

We present the first experimental demonstration (to our knowledge) of long-distance unperturbed fundamental optical soliton transmission in conventional single-mode optical fiber. The virtual transparency in the fiber required for soliton transmission, over 15 complete periods, was achieved by using an ultralong Raman fiber laser amplification scheme. Optical soliton pulse duration, pulse bandwidth, and peak intensity are shown to remain constant along the transmission length. Frequency-resolved optical gating spectrograms and numerical simulations confirm the observed optical soliton dynamics.