Bragg Grating Solitons

Abstract

We report the first experimental observation of nonlinear propagation effects in fiber Bragg gratings, resulting in nonlinear optical pulse compression and soliton propagation. The solitons occur at frequencies near the photonic band gap of the grating; they are due to a combination of the negative dispersion of the grating, which dominates the material dispersion, and self-phase modulation. The solitons propagate at velocities well below the speed of light in the uniform medium.

Optical solitons in periodic media with resonant and off-resonant nonlinearities

“…(2.1a) and (2.1b) take the simplest form in the case v = 0, corresponding to a pulse of standing light. In reality, the soliton observed by Eggleton, Slusher, de Sterke, Krug and Sipe [1996] was moving at a considerable velocity. Generation and detection of zero-velocity solitons in nonlinear Bragg gratings remains an experimental challenge.…”

“…Figure 1: Experimental evidence for the existence of solitons in a nonlinear optical fiber with Bragg grating: the broad pulse is far from a Bragg resonance and has passed the fiber without interacting with the grating; the narrow one is a soliton shaped by Bragg-resonant interaction with the grating (see further details in the work by Eggleton, Slusher, de Sterke, Krug and Sipe [1996]). …”

“…Detailed theoretical studies were finally followed by their experimental observation by Eggleton, Slusher, de Sterke, Krug and Sipe [1996] in a short (< 10 cm) piece of an optical fiber with a resonant Bragg grating written on it. This experiment requires the use of very powerful light beams, with an intensity comparable to the fiber's breakdown threshold.…”

“…Detailed theoretical studies of these Bragg-grating (Kerr-nonlinear) solitons (see de Sterke and Sipe [1994] for a review) were followed by their experimental observation (Eggleton, Slusher, de Sterke, Krug and Sipe [1996]) in a short (< 10 cm) piece of an optical fiber with a resonant Bragg grating written on it. In theoretical considerations of solitons in a Bragg grating combined with Kerr nonlinearity, a formidable problem is their stability.…”

Solitons in Bragg gratings with saturable nonlinearities

“…It was found that approximately half of the gap-soliton family is stable, and the other half unstable (the solitons with positive and negative intrinsic frequencies are, respectively, stable and unstable). Moving BG solitons (with the velocity no less than half the group ve-locity of light in the same material) have been created experimentally in silica fibers with the BG written in the cladding [9,10].…”