Disorder-induced soliton transmission in nonlinear photonic lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates how disorder in nonlinear photonic lattices can enable soliton transmission in conditions where regular lattices would reflect or transmit completely, revealing disorder's dual role in controlling soliton behavior.

Contribution

It demonstrates that introducing disorder into nonlinear photonic lattices can control soliton transmission and reflection, a novel approach to manipulating light in such media.

Findings

Disorder can enable soliton transmission in otherwise reflective lattices.

Disorder can induce reflection in lattices that are normally transparent.

Disorder effects depend on the specific parameter regime of the lattice.

Abstract

We address soliton transmission and reflection in nonlinear photonic lattices embedded into uniform Kerr nonlinear media. We show that by introducing disorder into the guiding lattice channels, one may achieve soliton transmission even under conditions where regular lattices reflect the input beam completely. In contrast, in the parameter range where the lattice is almost transparent for incoming solitons, disorder may induce a significant reflection.