Induced soliton explosions in modulated waveguide arrays

Summary form only given. Waveguide arrays are regarded as key components in future steering and routing schemes, because they allow us to distribute signals between many different channels. Therefore several present experimental activities have focused on the formation and dynamics of discrete solitons. AlGaAs samples were operated below half the bandgap to employ the focusing Kerr nonlinearity. For single-mode waveguides and for a CW-excitation the field evolution in the array is well described by i(da/sub n//dz)+/spl gamma/|a/sub n/|/sup 2/a/sub n/+C/sub 0/[1+/spl delta/C cos((2/spl pi//Z/sub 0/)z+/spl phi/)] (a/sub n-1/+a/sub n+1/)=0, where a/sub n/ accounts for the amplitudes of the individual guides and /spl gamma/ for the nonlinear interaction. We allow the coupling to vary slowly along the array around a mean value C/sub 0/ with a modulation period Z/sub 0/ and a magnitude /spl delta/C.