Optical switching between bistable soliton states of the highly nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Abstract

Using a particular nonlinearity (the linear + smooth step model) as an illustrative example, it is demonstrated numerically that switching between bistable soliton states of the highly nonlinear (generalized) Schrödinger equation can occur. This numerical simulation may serve as a model of optical switching between distinctly different soliton states in a nonlinear optical fiber and should stimulate the search for the materials and mechanisms with appropriate nonlinearities.