MODULATIONAL INSTABILITY OF ELECTROMAGNETIC-WAVES IN MEDIA WITH VARYING NONLINEARITY

The process of modulational instability of nonlinear plane waves is in vestigated in media with periodically and randomly varying nonlinearit y. The wave behavior is analyzed in the parametric instability region under the joint action of periodic modulation and the self-steepening effect, and a recurrence phenomena is observed for the nonlinear wave in the parametric resonance region. Stochastic parametric resonance is predicted in the case of a random media. The increment value of stoch astic parametric resonance obtained numerically is in good agreement w ith the theoretical estimate. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.