Temporal modulation of nonlinear surface waves and soliton emission at nonlinear slab waveguides

Abstract

The propagation of pulsed Gaussian beams end-firing the fundamental mode of a linear thin film covered with a nonlinear medium has been analysed by means of a variational method. Fundamental parameters for soliton emission and nonlinear surface wave propagation, such as critical power and film thickness, have been calculated. The role of the pulse shape has been investigated by comparing the behaviour of Gaussian and hyper-Gaussian pulses. The variational expressions obtained for the evolution of the beam width and trajectory are shown to be in good agreement with numerical simulations.