Abstract

Theoretical techniques for enumerating stationary TE and TM nonlinear guided (NGW) and nonlinear surface (NSW) wave solutions for various permutations of nonlinear dielectric layered geometries will be overviewed. Emphasis will be placed on discussing the stability of such stationary waves to propagation along the guiding structure. It will be shown that these nonlinear waves represent a small subclass of special solutions to a much more general propagation problem whose solutions are related to spatial soliton/solitary wave solutions of a modified nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Most stability studies, with one important exception [1], have involved direct numerical integration of this modified NLS equation using the appropriate nonlinear stationary wave solution as initial data. The analytic stability technique [1] will be illustrated for a variety of nonlinear optical dielectric responses. Recent developements in the study of diffusion effects and instabilities in the 3D problem will also be discussed. The discussion will be confined mainly to layered linear/nonlinear dielectric media with positive (self-focussing) nonlinear optical responses.

© 1988 Optical Society of America