Abstract

We consider the fenomenological model of the nonlocal Kerr-type nonlinear medium where the refractive index Δn(x) depends on the light intensity I(x) =|u(x)|² as where R(x) represents the nonlocal response of the medium (it becomes local for R(x)=δ(x)) Possible physical mechanisms responsible for this type of nonlinearity could include various transport effects such as heat convection observed in materials with thermal nonlinearity, diffusion of molecules, atoms or ions as during light propagation in atomic vapours and plasma [1,2]. If the response function is very narrow (weak nonlocality) then we can expand I(x’) around point x’=x to obtain with γ representing the strength of the nonlocality.

© 2000 IEEE