Abstract

Bright temporal solitons have been observed mainly in silica optical fibers. We propose here the possibility of observing bright temporal solitons in an AlGaAs waveguide. To do so, a few requirements must be satisfied. First, in order for solitons to actually form, the sign of the dispersion parameter β₂ must be opposite that of the Kerr-nonlinearity factor n₂. Second, in order to be able to distinguish experimentally a soliton from an ordinary pulse, the length of the waveguide must be a few soliton periods. Finally, the linear and the nonlinear losses must be weak enough to keep the signal from degrading. With a numerical study we have determined that these requirements are satisfied for a strip-loaded AlGaAs waveguide at a wavelength of 800 nm for pulse widths of 350 fs. The peak power for a first-order soliton is then near 20 W.

© 1995 Optical Society of America