DEVICES WRITTEN BY COLLIDING SPATIAL SOLITONS - A COUPLED-MODE THEORY APPROACH

The waveguides induced by interacting solitons (both bright and dark) are of great interest as potential all-optical devices. Devices induced by two distinct Kerr solitons are examined and expressions for the soliton separation throughout the interaction are obtained. Linear coupler theory is applied to these new expressions to calculate the behaviour of small signal beams guided by one of the solitons before the collision. In the case of equal signal and pump wavelengths the junctions are shown to exhibit the same remarkable properties observed in recent numerical studies.