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Optica Publishing Group
  • Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference
  • OSA Technical Digest (Optica Publishing Group, 1995),
  • paper QTuD4

Wave guiding by optical-vortex-soliton arrays

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Abstract

Formation of the optical-vortex soliton (OVS) has been demonstrated in a self-defocusing Kerr nonlinear medium.1 The OVS has a cylindrically symmetric dark core surrounded by a bright background. This nonlinear wave is a soliton because its dark core remains stable and stationary after a long propagation distance. The OVS also has the distinctive feature of a vortex characterized by a separable function of the azimuthal coordinate ϕ: exp(iMϕ), where M = ±1, ±2, … is the so-called topological charge. The OVS has promising applications in the area of light-light control. We address here two issues related to the use of OVS arrays in this area, the effects of background modulation and of cross coupling between OVS’s. In a self-defocusing Kerr nonlinear medium, the refractive index around an OVS varies an n(x, y) = n0 − |n2|Ixf(x, y), where f(x, y) is the intensity profile of the OVS, (x, y) are transverse coordinates with the origin as the center of the OVS, Ix is the intensity of the background, n0 is the linear refractive index, and n2 is the nonlinear refractive index. Because the center of the vortex-soliton core has zero intensity, the refractive index in this region is equal to n0. The surrounding bright area has a smaller refractive index, n0 − |n2|Ix. Therefore, the vortex filament can serve as a graded-index fiber waveguide for a probe beam of different frequency2 or different polarization.3 By perturbing the background intensity with another optical beam, one can provide modulation and amplification to the guided wave.2 The change in coupling coefficient of the OVS core, the light-induced wave guiding, is caused by the decrease in core size with the increasing background intensity. We numerically simulate the propagation of guided beams in an OVS array, which consists of one guided beam for each OVS. We focus on the cases with all OVS's having topological charges M = ±1, where the neighboring OVS’s can have either the same charge or opposite charges. We calculate wave guiding by OVS’s when background intensity is modulated in the middle of the propagation path, if the separation between OVS’s is large, this situation is effectively the same as the coupling efficiency of an OVS being modulated by another optical beam functioning as a controlling signal. When the modulation intensity is very high and the core size becomes very small, a large portion of the guided wave can be shaved away. A similar effect on the background intensity can occur when several OVS's are closely packed. However, the interactions among OVS's become significant in this case. Because OVS's obey the principles of hydrodynamics, they can cause translational and rotational motions in adjacent OVS's. If these motions are strong enough, the guided beam can be decoupled from the OVS. These and other results demonstrating the wave guiding in optical vortex soliton arrays are presented.

© 1995 Optical Society of America

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