Nonlinear Band Gap Transmission in Optical Waveguide Arrays

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nonlinear effects enable energy transmission in optical waveguide arrays, demonstrating that above a certain intensity threshold, energy can transfer via gap solitons, with potential experimental implications.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model showing nonlinear transmission in optical waveguides through gap solitons, extending the concept of nonlinear supratransmission to optical systems.

Findings

Energy transfer occurs above a threshold intensity.

Gap solitons facilitate nonlinear transmission.

The effect depends on specific index and coupling conditions.

Abstract

The effect of nonlinear transmission in coupled optical waveguide arrays is theoretically investigated via numerical simulations on the corresponding model equations. The realistic experimental setup is suggested injecting the beam in a single boundary waveguide, linear refractive index of which ($n_0$) is larger than one ($n$) of other identical waveguides in the array. Particularly, the effect holds if $\omega(n_0-n)/c>2Q$, where $Q$ is a linear coupling constant between array waveguides, $\omega$ is a carrier wave frequency and $c$ is a light velocity. Making numerical experiments in case of discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation it is shown that the energy transfers from the boundary waveguide to the waveguide array above certain threshold intensity of the injected beam. This effect is explained by means of the creation and propagation of gap solitons in full analogy with the similar phenomenon of nonlinear supratransmission [F. Geniet, J. Leon, PRL, {\bf 89}, 134102, (2002)] in case of discrete sine-Gordon lattice.