The waveguiding characteristics of a novel power switch with one input and n outputs (1×n) using oblique incidence to a nonlinear slab is proposed. With a proper incident optical power, the emitted soliton in the nonlinear slab can be efficiently directed to any waveguide in a array of n waveguides. For digital signal switching application, the number n can be increased simply by increasing the slab thickness. Moreover, it is found that the soliton offsets calculated by Snell’s law with an index obtained by averaging over the index distribution are in good agreement with those calculated by the beam propagation method.

A finite difference beam propagation method with nonuniform discretization is presented and validated for the analysis of solitary waves. We verify the accuracy of our nonuniform finite difference beam propagation method by demonstrating the evolution of the well‐known N soliton in nonlinear dispersive medium with and without higher‐order perturbed terms. Comparisons with the standard beam propagation method for calculation of both bright and dark solitons are also given and show that the nonuniform finite difference method is good for saving computing time, while maintaining the desired accuracy.