Edwards, M.E., Crutcher, S.H., Aggarwal, M.D., Jaenisch, H.M., Osei, A.J., and Bairavarasu, S.A. (2004) Optical solitons in anisotropic and inhomogeneous media. In: Proceedings of SPIE (5255) pp. 163-171. From: Laser Beam Shaping V, 2 August 2004, Denver, Colarado, USA.

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Abstract

Short pulse spectral content becomes modified while propagating in dispersive media. However, in dispersive nonlinear media, optical pulses resulting in solitary waves maintain their existence if proper balance is established between nonlinear self-phase modulation on the one hand and linear dispersion on the other. Such invariance pulse shape is critical for data transfer reliability in telecommunication technologies. Robust solitary waves that emerge from collisions unaltered are called solitons. During propagation of optical solitons in inhomogeneous media their trajectories are observed to deviate from straight-line paths to that of oscillatory behavior. Here, we use a spatial optical soliton solution to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in an inhomogeneous triangular refractive index profile as a small index perturbation to illustrate the oscillation motion. We determine the effective acceleration, give the period of oscillation, and compare results with the Gaussian refractive index profile. Such spatial solitons behave as point masses existing in a Newtonian gravitational potential hole. This novel transverse oscillatory behavior, occurring for various refractive index profiles, results from an effectively bounded acceleration.

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