Abstract

The field of nonlinear guided wave optics has steadily expanded in the last decade, as a rich variety of novel nonlinear phenomena have been demonstrated in a wide range of different systems. Looking back on the rapid expansion of this field with hindsight, it is clear that much of this progress has occurred because of parallel developments in two technological areas. Firstly, picosecond and femtosecond lasers have evolved from complex and sensitive systems usable only under controlled laboratory conditions to robust turnkey tools that allow the generation of high power optical radiation over wavelength ranges from the visible to the infrared, and indeed extending into new wavelength ranges on either side [1]. Secondly, the invention of new classes of optical waveguide based on artificially structured materials provide new degrees of freedom to control light, because their optical properties can be tailored through appropriate material choices and precise structural design and engineering. When designed to guide light with enhanced optical confinement impossible to achieve with standard optical fibres, such emerging – sometimes hybrid – waveguide structures open up fundamentally new regimes of nonlinear guided wave optics [2].

© 2017 IEEE