SOLITON PROPAGATION IN SATURABLE NONLINEAR FIBER COUPLERS - VARIATIONAL AND NUMERICAL RESULTS

The problem of optical soliton propagation in couplers with saturation of nonlinear refractive index is investigated using a simple variatio nal approach. From this study, important features relating to optical switching and soliton eigen-states are revealed. For instance, a param eter, gamma(max), which characterizes the limiting effect of saturatio n in optical switching, is identified. We carry out numerical solution s to the problem and confirm that the approximate approach does give r esults agreeing with those from the simulation.