Nonlinear Band Gap Transmission in Optical Waveguide Arrays

Abstract

The effect of nonlinear transmission in coupled optical waveguide arrays is theoretically investigated and a realistic experimental setup is suggested. The beam is injected in a single boundary waveguide, linear refractive index of which (n(0)) is larger than refractive indexes (n) of other identical waveguides in the array. Particularly, the effect holds if omega(n(0)-n)/c>2Q, where Q is a linear coupling constant between array waveguides, omega is a carrier wave frequency, and c is a light velocity. Numerical experiments show that the energy transfers from the boundary waveguide to the waveguide array above a certain threshold intensity of the injected beam. This effect is due to the creation and the propagation of gap solitons in full analogy with a similar phenomenon in sine-Gordon lattice [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 134102 (2002)]].