Role of pump-induced dispersion on femtosecond soliton amplification in erbium-doped fibers

The limitation to the amplification of femtosecond pulses by erbium-doped fibers owing to the soliton self-frequency shift may be overcome by using a dispersion-shifted fiber. We show that this result holds irrespective of the relatively large residual frequency-dependent chromatic dispersion that is associated with the pumping of the doping ions. Nevertheless, resonant dispersion may lead to temporal broadening and distortion of the amplified pulse.