Experimental observation of soliton robustness topolarisation dispersion pulse broadening

Soliton robustness to polarisation dispersion pulse broadening in a 400 km installed optical fibre is experimentally demonstrated. With 10 ps input pulses and a differential group delay of 7.6 ps, the soliton pulsewidth at the receiver is maintained within 10–11 ps when the input polarisation is changed, while the corresponding range for dispersion-compensated linear pulses is 10.5–15.5 ps.