Amplifying Optical Signals with Discrete Solitons in Waveguide Arrays

TL;DR

This paper proposes a design for an all-optical signal amplifier using discrete solitons in waveguide arrays, demonstrating controllable amplification through scattering interactions with reflectionless potentials.

Contribution

It introduces a novel protocol for optical signal amplification leveraging discrete soliton scattering in waveguide arrays, with detailed parameter modulation for practical implementation.

Findings

High sensitivity of reflected/transmitted soliton intensity to control soliton power.

Controllable amplification factor based on potential well parameters.

Feasibility of experimental realization with calculated amplification metrics.

Abstract

We present a design and protocol to achieve an essential feature of an optical transistor, namely the amplification of input signal with the use of discrete solitons in waveguide arrays. We consider the scattering of a discrete soliton by a reflectionless potential in the presence of a control soliton. We show that at the sharp transition region between full reflectance and full transmittance, the intensity of the reflected or transmitted soliton is highly sensitive to the intensity of the control soliton. This suggests a setup of signal amplifier. For realistic purposes, we modulate the parameters of the reflectionless potential well to achieve a performance of amplifier with a controllable amplification. To facilitate the experimental realization, we calculate the amplification factor in terms of the parameters of the potential well and the input power of the control soliton. The suggested signal amplifier device will be an important component in the all-optical data processing.