In optics, the term soliton is used to refer to any optical field that does not change during propagation because of a delicate balance between nonlinear and linear effects in the medium. There are two main kinds of solitons: Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... For the book by Sir Isaac Newton, see Opticks. ... The optical field is a term used in physics and vector calculus to designate the electric field shown as E in the electromagnetic wave equation which can be derived from Maxwells Equations. ... In mathematics, a nonlinear system is one whose behavior cant be expressed as a sum of the behaviors of its parts (or of their multiples. ...

• spatial solitons: the nonlinear effect can balance the diffraction. The electromagnetic field can change the refractive index of the medium while propagating, thus creating a structure similar to a graded-index fiber. If the field is also a propagating mode of the guide it has created, then it will remain confined and it will propagate without changing its shape
• temporal solitons: if the electromagnetic field is already spatially confined, it is possible to send pulses that will not change their shape because the nonlinear effects will balance the dispersion. Those solitons were discovered first and they are often simply referred as "solitons" in optics.

The intensity pattern formed on a screen by diffraction from a square aperture Diffraction refers to various phenomena associated with wave propagation, such as the bending, spreading and interference of waves passing by an object or aperture that disrupts the wave. ... The refractive index (or index of refraction) of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light (or other waves such as sound waves) is reduced inside the medium. ... In telecommunication, a graded-index fiber is an optical fiber with a core having a refractive index that decreases with increasing radial distance from the fiber axis. ... Dispersion can mean any of several things: A phenomenon that causes the separation of a wave into components of varying frequency. ...

Spatial solitons

In order to understand how a spatial soliton can exist, we have to make some considerations about a simple convex lens. As shown in the picture on the right, an optical field approaches the lens and then it is focused. The effect of the lens is to introduce a non-uniform phase change that causes focusing. This phase change is a function of the space a can be represented with a , whose shape is approximately represented in the picture. Image File history File links Soliton_lens_equivalent. ... This article is about the optical device. ...

The phase change can be expressed as the product of the phase constant and the width of the path the field has covered. We can write it as: In electromagnetic theory, the phase constant is one component of the propagation constant for a plane wave. ...

where L(x) is the width of the lens, changing in each point with a shape that is the same of because k₀ and n are constants. In other words, in order to get a focusing effect we just have to introduce a phase change of such a shape, but we are not obliged to change the width. If we leave the width L fixed in each point, but we change the value of the refractive index n(x) we will get exactly the same effect, but with a completely different approach. The refractive index (or index of refraction) of a medium is a measure for how much the speed of light (or other waves such as sound waves) is reduced inside the medium. ...

That's the way graded-index fibers work: the change in the refractive index introduces a focusing effect that can balance the natural diffraction of the field. If the two effects balance each other perfectly, then we have a confined field propagating within the fiber. In telecommunication, a graded-index fiber is an optical fiber with a core having a refractive index that decreases with increasing radial distance from the fiber axis. ...

Spatial solitons are based on the same principle: the Kerr effect introduces a Self-phase modulation that changes the refractive index according to the intensity: The Kerr effect or the quadratic electro-optic effect is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to the intensity of an external electric field. ... Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical effect of light-matter interaction. ...

if I(x) has a shape similar to the one shown in the figure, then we have created the phase behavior we wanted and the field will show a self-focusing effect. In other words, the field creates a fiber-like guiding structure while propagating. If the field creates a fiber and it is the mode of such a fiber at the same time, it means that the focusing nonlinear and diffractive linear effects are perfectly balanced and the field will propagate forever without changing its shape (as long as the medium does not change and if we can neglect losses, obviously). In order to have a self-focusing effect, we must have a positive n₂, otherwise we will get the opposite effect and we will not notice any nonlinear behavior.

The optical waveguide the soliton creates while propagating is not only a mathematical model, but it actually exists and can be used to guide other waves at different frequencies. This way it is possible to let light interact with light at different frequencies (this is impossible in linear media)

Proof

An electric field is propagating in a medium showing Optical Kerr effect, so the refractive index is given by: The Kerr effect or the quadratic electro-optic effect is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to the intensity of an external electric field. ...

n(I) = n + n₂I

we remember that the relationship between intensity and electric field is (in the complex representation):

where η = η₀ / n and η₀ is the impedance of free space, given by: The impedance of free space, is a universal constant relating the magnitudes of the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetic radiation travelling through free space. ...

The field is propagating in the z direction with a phase constant k₀n. About now, we will ignore any dependence on the y axis, assuming that it is infinite in that direction. Then the field can be expressed as: In electromagnetic theory, the phase constant is one component of the propagation constant for a plane wave. ...

where A_m is the maximum amplitude of the field and a(x,z) is a dimensionless normalized function (so that its maximum value is 1) that represents the shape of the electric field among the x axis. In general it depends on z because fields change their shape while propagating. Now we have to solve Helmholtz equation: The Helmholtz equation, named for Hermann von Helmholtz, is the elliptic partial differential equation where is the Laplacian, is a constant, and the unknown function is defined on three-dimensional Euclidean space R3. ...

where it was pointed out clearly that the refractive index (thus the phase constant) depend on intensity. If we replace the expression of the electric field in the equation, assuming that the envelope a(x,z) changes slowly while propagating, i.e.

the equation becomes:

Let us introduce an approximation that is valid because the nonlinear effects are always much smaller than the linear ones:

now we express the intensity in terms of the electric field:

the equation becomes:

We will now assume n₂ > 0 so that the nonlinear effect will cause self focusing. In order to make this evident, we will write in the equation n₂ = | n₂ | Let us now define some parameters and replace them in the equation:

• , so we can express the dependence on the x axis with a dimensionless parameter; X₀ is a length, whose physical meaning will be clearer later.
• , after the electric field has propagated across z for this length, the linear effects of diffraction can not be neglected anymore.
• , for studying the z-dependence with a dimensionless variable.
• , after the electric field has propagated across z for this length, the nonlinear effects can not be neglected anymore. This parameter depends upon the intensity of the electric field, that's typical for nonlinear parameters.

The equation becomes:

this is a common equation known as Nonlinear Schrödinger equation. From this form, we can understand the physical meaning of the parameter N: In theoretical physics, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation is a nonlinear version of Schrödingers equation in two dimensions. ...

• if , then we can neglect the nonlinear part of the equation. It means , then the field will be affected by the linear effect (diffraction) much earlier than the nonlinear effect, it will just diffract without any nonlinear behavior.
• if , then the nonlinear effect will be more evident than diffraction and, because of self phase modulation, the field will tend to focus.
• if , then the two effects balance each other and we have to solve the equation.

For N = 1 the solution of the equation is simple and it is the fundamental soliton:

where sech is the hyperbolic secant. It still depends on z, but only in phase, so the shape of the field will not change during propagation. A ray through the origin intercepts the hyperbola in the point , where is the area between the ray, its mirror image with respect to the -axis, and the hyperbola (see animated version with comparison with the trigonometric (circular) functions). ...

For N = 2 it is still possible to express the solution in a closed form, but it has a more complicated form:

It does change its shape during propagation, but it is a periodic function of z with period ζ = π / 2.

Soliton's shape while propagating with N=1, it does not change its shape

Soliton's shape while propagating with N=2, it changes its shape periodically

For soliton solutions, N must be an integer and it is said to be the order or the soliton. For higher values of N, there are no closed form expressions, but the solitons exist and they are all periodic with different periods. Their shape can easily be expressed only immediately after generation: Image File history File links Soliton_1st_order. ... Image File history File links Soliton_1st_order. ... Image File history File links Soliton_2nd_order. ... Image File history File links Soliton_2nd_order. ...

on the right there is the plot of the second order soliton: at the beginning it has a shape of a sech, then the maximum amplitude increases and then comes back to the sech shape. Since high intensity is necessary to generate solitons, if the field increases its intensity even further the medium could be damaged.

The condition to be solved if we want to generate a fundamental soliton is obtained expressing N in terms of all the known parameters and then putting N = 1:

that, in terms of maximum intensity value becomes:

in most of the cases, the two variables that can be changed are the maximum intensity I_max and the pulse width X₀

Temporal solitons

The main problem that limits transmission bitrate in optical fibers is group velocity dispersion. It is due to the fact that generated impulses have a non-zero wide bandwidth and the medium they are propagating through have a refractive index that depends on frequency (or wavelength). This effect is represented by the group delay dispersion parameter D; using it, it's possible to calculate exactly how much the pulse will widen: In telecommunications and computing, bitrate (sometimes written bit rate, data rate or as a variable Rbit) is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. ... Fiber Optic strands An optical fiber in American English or fibre in British English is a transparent thin fiber for transmitting light. ... Dispersion of a light beam in a prism. ... Bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower cutoff frequencies of, for example, a filter, a communication channel, or a signal spectrum, and is typically measured in hertz. ... For other uses, see Frequency (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Wavelength (disambiguation). ...

where L is the length of the fiber and Δλ is the bandwidth in terms of wavelength. The approach in modern communication systems is to balance such a dispersion with other fibers having D with different signs in different parts of the fiber: this way the pulses keep on broadening and shrinking while propagating. Anyway, with temporal solitons it is possible to remove such a problem completely.

linear and nonlinear effects on Gaussian pulses

Consider the picture on the right. On the left there is a standard Gaussian pulse, that's the envelope of the field oscillating at a defined frequency. We assume that the frequency remains perfectly constant during the pulse. Image File history File links Temporal_soliton_explanation. ... Image File history File links Temporal_soliton_explanation. ... Gaussian curves parametrised by expected value and variance (see normal distribution) A Gaussian function (named after Carl Friedrich Gauss) is a function of the form: for some real constants a > 0, b, and c. ...

Now we let this pulse propagate through a fiber with D > 0, it will be affected by group velocity dispersion. The higher frequency components will propagate a little bit faster than the lower frequencies, thus arriving before at the end of the fiber. The overall signal we get is a wider chirped pulse, shown in the upper right of the picture.

effect of self-phase modulation on frequency

Now let us assume we have a medium that shows only nonlinear Kerr effect but its refractive index does not depend on frequency: such a medium does not exist, but it's worth considering it to understand the different effects. Image File history File links Self-phase-modulation-en. ... Image File history File links Self-phase-modulation-en. ...

The phase of the field is given by:

the frequency (according to its definition) is given by:

this situation is represented in the picture on the left. At the beginning of the pulse the frequency is lower, at the end it's higher. After the propagation through our ideal medium, we will get a chirped pulse with no broadening because we have neglected dispersion.

Coming back to the first picture, we see that the two effects introduce a change in frequency in two different opposite directions. It is possible to make a pulse so that the two effects will balance each other. Considering higher frequencies, linear dispersion will tend to let them propagate faster, while nonlinear Kerr effect will slow them down. The overall effect will be that the pulse does not change while propagating: such pulses are called temporal solitons.

History of temporal solitons

In 1973, Akira Hasegawa of AT&T Bell Labs was the first to suggest that solitons could exist in optical fibers, due to a balance between self-phase modulation and anomalous dispersion. Also in 1973 Robin Bullough made the first mathematical report of the existence of optical solitons. He also proposed the idea of a soliton-based transmission system to increase performance of optical telecommunications. For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... This article is about the current AT&T. For the 1885-2005 company, see American Telephone & Telegraph. ... Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... Optical fibers An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length. ... Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical effect of light-matter interaction. ... Dispersion of a light beam in a prism. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... Robin K. Bullough (born 1929) is a British Mathematical Physicist famous for his contributions to the theory of solitons, in particular for his discovery of the optical soliton, now commonly used, for example, in the theory of trans-oceanic optical fibre communication theory, but first recognised in Bulloughs work... Telecommunication involves the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ...

Solitons in a fiber optic system are described by the Manakov equations. Maxwells Equations, when converted to cylindrical coordinates, and with the boundary conditions for a fiber optic cable while including birefringence as an effect taken into account, will yield the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. ...

In 1987, P. Emplit, J.P. Hamaide, F. Reynaud, C. Froehly and A. Barthelemy, from the Universities of Brussels and Limoges, made the first experimental observation of the propagation of a dark soliton, in an optical fiber. Year 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar). ...

In 1988, Linn Mollenauer and his team transmitted soliton pulses over 4,000 kilometers using a phenomenon called the Raman effect, named for the Indian scientist Sir C. V. Raman who first described it in the 1920s, to provide optical gain in the fiber. Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... When light is scattered from a molecule most photons are elastically scattered. ... Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, CBE (Tamil: சந்திரசேகர வெங்கடராமன்) (November 7, 1888 – November 21, 1970) was an Indian physicist, who was awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect, which is named after him. ... The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ...

In 1991, a Bell Labs research team transmitted solitons error-free at 2.5 gigabits over more than 14,000 kilometers, using erbium optical fiber amplifiers (spliced-in segments of optical fiber containing the rare earth element erbium). Pump lasers, coupled to the optical amplifiers, activate the erbium, which energizes the light pulses. Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... General Name, Symbol, Number erbium, Er, 68 Chemical series lanthanides Group, Period, Block n/a, 6, f Appearance silvery white Standard atomic weight 167. ...

In 1998, Thierry Georges and his team at France Télécom R&D Center, combining optical solitons of different wavelengths (wavelength division multiplexing), demonstrated a data transmission of 1 terabit per second (1,000,000,000,000 units of information per second). Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... France Télécom (Euronext: FTE, NYSE: FTE) (often spelled France Telecom, without the accents, in non-French text) is the main telecommunication company in France. ... In telecommunications wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes several optical carrier signals on a single optical fibre by using different wavelengths (colours) of laser light to carry different signals. ... // In computing, binary prefixes can be used to quantify large numbers where powers of two are more useful than powers of ten (such as computer memory sizes). ...

In 2001, the practical use of solitons became a reality when Algety Telecom deployed submarine telecommunications equipment in Europe carrying real traffic using John Scott Russell's solitary wave. Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... Telecommunication involves the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... John Scott Russell John Scott Russell (9 May 1808, Glasgow – 8 June 1882) was a Scottish naval engineer who built the Great Eastern (the largest ship built at that time) in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and made the discovery that gave birth to the modern study of solitons. ...

Proof

An electric field is propagating in a medium showing optical Kerr effect through a guiding structure (such as an optical fiber) that limits the power on the xy plane. If the field is propagating towards z with a phase constant β₀, then it can be expressed in the following form: Optical fibers An optical fiber (or fibre) is a glass or plastic fiber designed to guide light along its length. ...

where A_m is the maximum amplitude of the field, a(t,z) is the envelope that shapes the impulse in the time domain; in general it depends on z because the impulse can change its shape while propagating; f(x,y) represents the shape of the field on the xy plane, and it does not change during propagation because we have assumed the field is guided. Both a and f are normalized dimensionless functions whose maximum value is 1, so that A_m really represents the field amplitude.

Since in the medium there is a dispersion we can not neglect, the relationship between the electric field and its polarization is given by a convolution integral. Anyway, using a representation in the Fourier domain, we can replace the convolution with a simple product, thus using standard relationships that are valid in simpler media. We Fourier-transform the electric field using the following definition: In mathematics and, in particular, functional analysis, convolution is a mathematical operator which takes two functions f and g and produces a third function that in a sense represents the amount of overlap between f and a reversed and translated version of g. ... In mathematics, the Fourier transform is a certain linear operator that maps functions to other functions. ...

using this definition, a derivative in the time domain corresponds to a product in the Fourier domain:

the complete expression of the field in the frequency domain is:

Now we can solve Helmholtz equation in the frequency domain: The Helmholtz equation, named for Hermann von Helmholtz, is the elliptic partial differential equation where is the Laplacian, is a constant, and the unknown function is defined on three-dimensional Euclidean space R3. ...

we decide to express the phase constant with the following notation: In electromagnetic theory, the phase constant is one component of the propagation constant for a plane wave. ...

where we assume that Δβ (the sum of the linear dispersive component and the non linear part) is a small perturbation, i.e. . The phase constant can have any complicated behavior, but we can represent it with a Taylor series centered on ω₀: As the degree of the Taylor series rises, it approaches the correct function. ...

where, as known:

we put the expression of the electric field in the equation and make some calculations. If we assume the slow varying envelope approximation:

we get:

we are ignoring the behavior in the xy plane, because it is already known and given by f(x,y). We make a small approximation, as we did for the spatial soliton:

replacing this in the equation we get simply:

now we want to come back in the time domain. Expressing the products by derivatives we get the duality:

we can write the non linear component in terms of the amplitude of the field:

for duality with the spatial soliton, we define:

and this symbol has the same meaning of the previous case, even if the context is different. The equation becomes:

We know that the impulse is propagating among the z axis with a group velocity given by v_g = 1 / β₁, so we are not interested in it because we just want to know how the pulse changes its shape while propagating. We decide to study the impulse shape, i.e. the envelope function a(.) using a reference that is moving with the field at the same velocity. Thus we make the substitution The group velocity of a wave is the velocity with which the variations in the shape of the waves amplitude (known as the modulation or envelope of the wave) propagate through space. ...

T = t − β₁z

and the equation becomes:

we assume the medium where the field is propagating to show anomalous dispersion, i.e. β₂ < 0 or in term of the group delay dispersion parameter . We make this more evident replacing in the equation β₂ = − | β₂ | . Let us define now the following parameters (the duality with the previous case is evident):

replacing those in the equation we get:

that is exactly the same equation we have obtained in the previous case. The first order soliton is given by:

the same considerations we have made are valid in this case. The condition N = 1 becomes a condition on the amplitude of the electric field:

or, in terms of intensity:

or we can express it in terms of power if we introduce an effective area A_eff defined so that P = IA_eff:

Stability of solitons

We have described what optical solitons are and, using mathematics, we have seen that, if we want to create them, we have to create a field with a particular shape (just sech for the first order) with a particular power related to the duration of the impulse. But what if we are a bit wrong in creating such impulses? then, adding small perturbations to the equations and solving them numerically, it is possible to show that mono-dimensional solitons are stable. They are often referred as (1 + 1) D solitons, meaning that they are limited in one dimension (x or t, as we have seen) and propagate in another one (z).

If we create such a soliton using sightly wrong power or shape, then it will adjust itself until it reaches the standard sech shape with the right power. Unfortunately this is achieved at the expense of some power loss, that can cause problems because it can generate another non-soliton field propagating together we the field we want. Mono-dimensional solitons are very stable: for example, if 0.5 < N < 1.5 we will generate a first order soliton anyway; if N is greater we'll generate a higher order soliton, but the focusing it does while propagating may cause high power peaks damaging the media.

The only way to create a (1 + 1) D spatial soliton is to limit the field on the y axis using a dielectric slab, then limiting the field on x using the soliton. In electromagnetics and communications engineering, a waveguide is defined as any physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves. ...

On the other hand, (2 + 1) D spatial solitons are unstable, so any small perturbation (due to noise, for example) can cause the soliton to diffract as a field in a linear medium or to collapse, thus damaging the material. It is possible to create stable (2 + 1) D spatial solitons using saturating nonlinear media, where the Kerr relationship n(I) = n + n₂I is valid until it reaches a maximum value. Working close to this saturation level makes it possible to create a stable soliton in a three dimensional space.

Effect of power losses

As we have seen, in order to create a soliton it is necessary to have the right power when it is generated. If there are no losses in the medium, then we know that the soliton will keep on propagating forever without changing shape (1st order) or changing its shape periodically (higher orders). Unfortunately any medium introduces losses, so the actual behavior of power will be in the form:

P(z) = P₀e ^{− αz}

this is a serious problem for temporal solitons propagating in fibers for several kilometers. Let us consider what happens for the temporal soliton, generalization to the spatial ones is immediate. We have proved that the relationship between power P₀ and impulse length T₀ is:

if the power changes, the only thing that can change in the second part of the relationship is T₀. if we add losses to the power and solve the relationship in terms of T₀ we get:

the width of the impulse grows exponentially to balance the losses! this relationship is true as long as the soliton exists, i.e until this perturbation is small, so it must be otherwise we can not use the equations for solitons and we have to study standard linear dispersion. If we want to create a transmission system using optical fibers and solitons, we have to add optical amplifiers in order to limit the loss of power. An optical amplifier is a device that amplifies an optical signal directly, without the need to first convert it to an electrical signal. ...

Dark solitons

In the analysis of both types of solitons we have assumed particular conditions about the medium:

• in spatial solitons, n₂ > 0, that means the self-phase modulation causes self-focusing
• in temporal solitons, β₂ < 0 or D > 0, anomalous dispersion

Is it possible to obtain solitons if those conditions are not verified? if we assume n₂ < 0 or β₂ > 0, we get the following differential equation (it has the same form in both cases, we will use only the notation of the temporal soliton):

This equation has soliton-like solutions. For the first order (N=1):

a(τ,ζ) = tanh(τ)e^iζ

power of a dark soliton

The plot of | a(τ,ζ) | ² is shown in the picture on the right. For higher order solitons (N > 1) we can use the following closed form expression: Image File history File links Dark_soliton. ... Image File history File links Dark_soliton. ...

a(τ,ζ = 0) = Ntanh(τ)e^iζ

It is a soliton, in the sense that it propagates without changing its shape, but it is not made by a normal pulse, but it is a lack of energy in a continuous time beam. The intensity is always constant, but for a short time it becomes zero and then back to the constant value again, thus generating a "dark pulse", from which the name dark soliton. Those solitons can actually be generated introducing short dark pulses in much longer standard pulses. Dark solitons are more difficult to handle than standard solitons, but they have shown to be more stable and robust to losses.

See also

• Soliton
• Self-phase modulation
• Optical Kerr effect

In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave (a wave packet or pulse) that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed; solitons are caused by a delicate balance between nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. ... Self-phase modulation (SPM) is a nonlinear optical effect of light-matter interaction. ... The Kerr effect or the quadratic electro-optic effect is a change in the refractive index of a material in response to the intensity of an external electric field. ...

References

Saleh, B. E. A. & Teich, M. C. (1991), Fundamentals of Photonics, New York: John Wiley & sons, inc., ISBN 0-471-83965-5

Agrawal, Govind P. (1995), Nonlinear fiber optics (2nd ed.), San Diego (California): Academic Press, ISBN 0-12-045142-5