Optical gap solitons: Past, present, and future; theory and experiments

Optical gap solitons refer to nonlinear waves propagating in optical fibers whose linear refractive index has a periodic variation. Stationary gap solitons came to light first in 1987 [Chen and Mills, Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 160 (1987)]; two years later, they re-emerge in Christodoulides and Joseph [Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 1746 (1989)] and are first extended to a more general traveling wave form in Aceves and Wabnitz [Phys. Lett. A 141, 37 (1989)]. But it was not until seven years later, that the first experimental demonstration [Eggleton et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 1627 (1996); J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 14, 2980 (1997)] was reported. Since then, there has been an increase in the study of the dynamics and applications of such solitons. This paper is a brief survey of some of the ongoing and future research on optical gap solitons.