Abstract

The study of nonlinear effects in optical couplers has expanded greatly since the pioneering works of Maier [1] and Jensen [2]. One of their possible applications is to all-optical switching [3,4] and logic functions [5]. Recent experiments [6] show that very high switching speeds, e.g. in the femtosecond range, are possible with this kind of device. Extensive theoretical and numerical investigation of soliton switching and propagation dynamics has been reported in a number of publications [7-11]. In all published works, it has been implicitly or explicitly supposed that soliton states consist of two solitons having sech-function shapes. In reality the shape of each component in a coupled soliton state can be quite different from the sech-function. This is particularly important in considering bifurcation phenomena.

© 1993 Optical Society of America