Keywords

Dissipative, Optics, SOA, Semiconductor amplifier, Spatial soliton

Abstract

A spatial soliton is a shape invariant self guided beam of light or a self induced waveguide. Spatial solitons appear as a result of the balance of diffraction and nonlinear focusing in a system. They have been observed in many different conservative media in the last couple of years. Solitons are ubiquitous, because of the probability of using their interactions in optical data processing, communications etc. Up to now due to the power required to generate the solitons, and the response times of the soliton supporting media, these special waves of nature could not penetrate the applications arena. Semiconductors, with their resonant nonlinearities, are thought to be ideal candidates for fast switching, low power spatial solitons. In this dissertation it is shown theoretically and experimentally that it is possible to observe stable spatial solitons in a periodically patterned semiconductor optical amplifier (PPSOA). The solitons have unique beam profiles that change only with system parameters, like pumping current, etc. Their coherent and incoherent interactions which could lead to all optical devices have been investigated experimentally and theoretically. The formation of filaments or modulational instability has been studied theoretically and yielded analytical formulae for evaluating the filament gain and the maximum spatial frequencies in PPSOA devices. Furthermore, discrete array amplifiers have been analyzed numerically for discrete solitons, and the prospect of using multi peak discrete solitons as laser amplifiers is discussed.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2004

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Stegeman, George

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Optics and Photonics

Department

Optics and Photonics

Degree Program

Optics and Photonics

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000142

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000142

Language

English

Release Date

August 2004

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Optics; Optics -- Dissertations, Academic

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