Abstract

Nonlinear polarisation dynamics in semiconductor waveguides is a topic of current interest with applications in vectorial spatial solitons¹ and all-optical switching schemes. It is generally found that as the change in refractive index induced by the Kerr nonlinearity becomes comparable to the birefringence of the waveguide, the single-polarised (TE and TM) stable stationary eigenmode becomes unstable and there is an emergence of a pair of mixed-polarised stable stationary eigenmodes (i.e. bifurcation). The bifurcation in the mode with the lower propagation constant is attributable to the anisotropy in the nonlinear refraction between the TE (parallel to [110]) and TM (parallel to [001]) polarisations. These phenomena has been scrutinised both in the plane-wave² and spatial soliton¹ cases obtaining analytic results for the bifurcation threshold. Of interest here is the additional degree of control obtained with a longitudinal magnetic field through the magneto-optic effect which may, for example, allow the polarisation state to be switched from one stationary state to another.

© 2000 IEEE