Abstract

It is well known that spatial solitons can be produced in optical media when the nonlinear third order susceptibility balances diffraction. There has been considerable interest in use of the accompanying nonlinear shift in the index of refraction as a writable waveguide for optical communications. A reconfigurable waveguide array in which several solitons are generated and steered toward various detectors could be used as, e.g., a crossbar switch. This potential application, among others, motivates the careful investigation of coupled solitary waves. There are several recent works in which one parameter solutions for coupled states have been presented.^1-3 In particular much emphasis has been placed on the nonlinear coupling between light beams of differing frequencies.^4,5 References^1-3 examine coupling in birefringent media without phase matching, whereas Refs. 4 and 5 consider'cascaded three-wave mixing states.

© 1996 Optical Society of America