Feature
Kink Solitons in Nonlinear Optics
In the last few years the word "soliton" has become a common word in optics and photonics, thanks to the current worldwide study of potential applications of solitons in optical communications and photonic switching. Even though the phenomenon of self-induced transparency in a resonant absorbing medium provided the first example of solitons in optics, it was the discovery of solitons in optical fibers that transformed solitons from a mathematical curiosity into a practical and useful entity. Their existence is attributed to the simultaneous presence of anomalous dispersion and nonlinear refraction (responsible for self-phase modulation) in the 1.5 μm wavelength region of silica fibers.
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