Abstract

Temporal optical solitons may exist in media where the dispersion-induced chirp is balanced by nonlinear self-phase modulation due to the Kerr effect. Usually, the parabolic approximation is employed for the frequency dependence of the wave vector (dispersion relation) resulting in the nonlinear Schrödinger for the field envelope. The propagation of temporal solitons in optical fibers can be reasonably described by this provided that the mean frequency is not too close to the zero-dispersion point. But, if the parabolic approximation fails higher-order terms of the expansion must be taken into account [1, 2] or the dispersion relation of the material must be approximated in a different way. Here we choose the latter option.

© 1996 Optical Society of America