Abstract

Since a decade a considerable deal of interest has centred on the investigation of nonlinear directional couplers (NLDC) as a basic scheme for all-optical information processing in waveguides. It has been shown that the location of the output signal depends critically on the intensity launched into one input channel or the phase difference between two input signals. Most analyses are concerned with the cw case. This model holds even for pulses provided that the pulse length exceeds considerably the relaxation time of the nonlinearity. Hence, each portion of the pulse will couple according to the cw switching characteristic that in turn depends on the instantaneous power. This leads to a pulse break-up in the course of propagation and limits the achievable nonlinear power transfer.

© 1993 Optical Society of America