Abstract

In the early days of nonlinear optics Manakov found that the coupled nonlinear Schrodinger’s equations which describe the propagation of optical beams with two orthogonal polarisations [1] could have soliton solutions. Certain conditions had to be satisfied [2]; namely the self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) have to be equal, the SPM coefficients need to be equal for the two polarisations and the energy exchange terms, sometimes known as the Four Wave Mixing (FWM) terms must be zero. Our studies have indicated that in AIGaAs, for photon energies just below half the band gap, the SPM-to-XPM ratio is approximately unity (to within the experimental error) and also the nonlinear coefficients for the transverse electric fields of the TE-mode (E II001) are approximately the same. Furthermore, we were able to effectively set the FWM term to zero by using different delay lines for the two polarisations and making them essentially incoherent. In this paper, we show experimentally the generation and propagation of Manakov spatial solitons in AIGaAs slab waveguides.

© 1996 Optical Society of America