Stability of bright and dark surface waves

Abstract

The stability of surface waves trapped at an interface between a self-focusing medium and a self-defocusing medium is examined both analytically and numerically. The two bright and dark surface waves are found to be unstable, whereas one of the dark surface waves is stable and the other is unstable. The instability of the surface waves is shown to lead to the emission of gray solitons and the fundamental bright solitons. Ultrafast optical switching and amplification is also investigated, capitalizing on the instability development of surface waves.