The field of nonlinear optics has been investigated extensively since
its beginning in 1961. This development is in both the theory of
nonlinear effects and the theory of nonlinear interactions in
nonlinear media, and in the applications of nonlinear devices. The
mathematical basis of nonlinear optics is Maxwell’s system of
equations governing propagation of electromagnetic waves in a material
medium, combined with relations accounting for the nonlinear response
of the medium to the electromagnetic field. This review paper presents
the contribution of African researchers to recent theoretical advances
in the study of nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic waves
with different types of nonlinear media, such as optical fibers,
metamaterials, and Bose–Einstein condensates, that constitute a
fascinating source of temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal phenomena
in the physics of light, and that lead to modulational instability,
optical pulse compression, rogue waves,
P
T
-symmetric phenomena, supercontinuum
generation, and dissipative solitons.