Pure-quartic solitons

• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10427
• Publication Date: 2016-01-29T10:24:49Z
• Authors: Andrea Blanco-Red...; C. Martijn de Sterke; J.E. Sipe; Thomas F. Krauss; Benjamin J. Eggleton; Chad Husko
• Keywords: Supercontinuum; Modulation (music); Group velocity; Self-phase modulation

Temporal optical solitons have been the subject of intense research due to their intriguing physics and applications in ultrafast optics supercontinuum generation. Conventional bright result from interaction anomalous group-velocity dispersion self-phase modulation. Here we report discovery an entirely new class arising purely negative fourth-order modulation, which can occur even for normal dispersion. We provide experimental numerical evidence shape-preserving propagation flat temporal phase fundamental pure-quartic soliton periodically modulated higher-order solitons. Using analytic theory, derive approximate shape exhibiting excellent agreement with our observations. Our discovery, enabled by unique photonic crystal waveguides, could find communications lasers.