Abstract

Since their prediction and discovery more than twenty years ago, optical solitons have received ever increasing attention from the research community. Temporally confined solitons propagating as pulses in optical fibres have been used in experimental transmission systems and are touted for the next generation of transoceanic cables [1]. More futuristically, nonlinear switches that rely on the interaction between spatially confined solitons are being investigated in a variety of media [2]. Topological solitons, also known as kink or dark solitons, typically appear as a localised intensity dip on a finite background [3], and like their bright counterparts, have been observed in fibres [4] and bulk materials [5]. They are generally more robust than bright solitons and have been the object of recent research considering the influence of polarisation [6,7].

© 1996 Optical Society of America