Abstract

Gap solitons are electromagnetic field structures that can exist in a nonlinear optical medium, if there is also a periodic variation .in the linear optical properties over a length scale on the order of the wavelength of light. In simple one-dimensional geometries, they are similar in many ways to the simpler electromagnetic field structure of a soliton in a uniform optical fiber. In both this "regular" soliton and a gap soliton, the field structure gains its stability and robustness through a counterbalancing of the effect of group velocity dispersion (GVD), which tends to disperse the energy of the pulse, by the effect of the nonlinearity, which tends to concentrate it. Thus, in both cases the nonlinear Schrödinger equation provides a good first approximation to the underlying physics.

© 1992 Optical Society of America