PHASE DETECTING OF SOLITONS BY MIXING WITH A CONTINUOUS-WAVE BACKGROUND IN AN OPTICAL FIBER

Whenever a bright soliton is superimposed onto a much longer pulse or a continuous wave at the input of an optical fiber, its nonlinear propagation in the anomalous dispersion regime of the fiber critically depends on the relative phase at input of the two pulses. Whenever the relative phase between the pulses is in the range [-pi/2, pi/2], a stable solitonlike waveform is formed. Otherwise the soliton pulse rapidly decays into dispersive waves. We describe the potential of this effect for coherent-phase detection of solitons, optical-pulse compression, and all-optical switching. We also discuss the influence on the propagation of solitons plus a background of perturbations such as modulational instability and the Raman self-scattering effect.