Cascaded nonlinearities and their applications

Summary form only given. The application of second-order optical nonlinearities is no longer restricted to the generation of new frequencies in parametric mixing processes and electro-optics. Nearly a decade ago it was suggested to apply intensity-dependent wave-vector modifications of the interacting waves in a second-order frequency mixing process to realize all-optically controlled light propagation, like soliton formation, all-optical switching and nonlinear spectral broadening. This new aspect of the quadratic nonlinearity is called "cascaded nonlinearity".