R. Reinisch - Böcker

The field of nonlinear optics, which has undergone a very rapid development since the discovery of lasers in the early sixties, continues to be an active and rapidly developing - search area. The interest is mainly due to the potential applications of nonlinear optics: - rectly in telecommunications for high rate data transmission, image processing and recognition or indirectly from the possibility of obtaining large wavelength range tuneable lasers for applications in industry, medicine, biology, data storage and retrieval, etc. New phenomena and materials continue to appear regularly, renewing the field. This has proven to be especially true over the last five years. New materials such as organics have been developed with very large second- and third-order nonlinear optical responses. Imp- tant developments in the areas of photorefractivity, all optical phenomena, frequency conv- sion and electro-optics have been observed. In parallel, a number of new phenomena have been reported, some of them challenging the previously held concepts. For example, solitons based on second-order nonlinearities have been observed in photorefractive materials and frequency doubling crystals, destroying the perception that third order nonlinearities are - quired for their generation and propagation. New ways of creating and manipulating nonl- ear optical materials have been developed. An example is the creation of highly nonlinear (second-order active) polymers by static electric field, photo-assisted or all-optical poling. Nonlinear optics involves, by definition, the product of electromagnetic fields. As a con- quence, it leads to the beam control.

This book is a unified presentation of guided wave nonlinear optics. The path from the original nonlinear optical experiments based on multi-megawatt lasers in bulk materials to the recent breakthroughs using milliwatt laser powers in guided configurations is outlined. The chapters cover both the theoretical framework of the field and applications to basic scientific research, optimal communications and technical instrumentation. Specific topics include nonlinear interactions using integrated optical guides, surface waves and optical fibres as well as the related topics of fibre and integrated optical lasers and amplifiers. Developments concerning solitons and soliton-based devices are presented in detail. For each topic care is taken to ensure an heuristic introduction in order to facilitate the transition toward state-of-the-art advanced research material presented by recognized world leaders in these fields.

The field of nonlinear optics, which has undergone a very rapid development since the discovery of lasers in the early sixties, continues to be an active and rapidly developing - search area. The interest is mainly due to the potential applications of nonlinear optics: - rectly in telecommunications for high rate data transmission, image processing and recognition or indirectly from the possibility of obtaining large wavelength range tuneable lasers for applications in industry, medicine, biology, data storage and retrieval, etc. New phenomena and materials continue to appear regularly, renewing the field. This has proven to be especially true over the last five years. New materials such as organics have been developed with very large second- and third-order nonlinear optical responses. Imp- tant developments in the areas of photorefractivity, all optical phenomena, frequency conv- sion and electro-optics have been observed. In parallel, a number of new phenomena have been reported, some of them challenging the previously held concepts. For example, solitons based on second-order nonlinearities have been observed in photorefractive materials and frequency doubling crystals, destroying the perception that third order nonlinearities are - quired for their generation and propagation. New ways of creating and manipulating nonl- ear optical materials have been developed. An example is the creation of highly nonlinear (second-order active) polymers by static electric field, photo-assisted or all-optical poling. Nonlinear optics involves, by definition, the product of electromagnetic fields. As a con- quence, it leads to the beam control.

This book is devoted to the numerous phenomena arising from the interplay between electromagnetic resonances and nonlinear optical interactions. These resonances are associated with surface plasmas or guided waves, excited in nonlinear optical resonators such as prisms or grating couplers. Topics include rigorous theories of diffraction by gratings in nonlinear optics, presented in a form ready for numerical implementations; scattering the matrix description in nonlinear optics leading to the phenomological approach based on the use of poles and zeros and other behaviours.