Abstract

Optical solitons, either temporal pulses in single mode fibers or spatially confined beams in planar waveguides, are usually described as a scalar field and analyzed using a scalar wave equation. Recently there has been a growing interest, motivated by several applications, in the polarization properties of solitons. In this talk we shall review some of the recent work in this area, and in particular discuss the conditions for formation of solitons with general polarization states - vector solitons - and the interactions between them. Mathematically, vector optical solitons in Kerr-like nonlinear medium are described by two coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. These equations are nonintegrable except in one specific ease known as the Manakov soliton However, in most cases of practical interest it is the nonintegrable situation that has to be considered.

© 1996 IEEE