Solitons light the way

Allan Boardman
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Allan Boardman: Joule Laboratory, University of Salford

Nature, 1997, vol. 387, issue 6636, 854-855

Abstract: Solitons are solitary waves and were first observed over 150 years ago. Now it seems they may, in technological terms, be the wave of the future. The latest work involves self-trapping of incoherent (that is, ‘ordinary’) light in photorefractive materials, which results in beams that can be tuned to form ‘soft’ waveguides; moreover, the physics is such that beams can be sent within beams. Some technical hurdles have yet to be overcome, but the future of optical soliton communication or all-optical information processing looks bright.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1038/43067

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