SOLITARY WAVE-PROPAGATION AND BISTABILITY IN THE NORMAL DISPERSION REGION OF HIGHLY NONLINEAR-OPTICAL FIBERS AND WAVE-GUIDES

Properties of bright solitary wave solutions of the cubic-quintic nonl inear Schrodinger equation are considered in the normal dispersion reg ion of optical fibres and waveguides with third-and fifth-order nonlin earities. The case of an optical fibre is concretely considered but ot her possible waveguide geometries are also discussed. For comparison, the properties of the black solitary wave existing in the same paramet er range are also considered. All soliton parameters are presented in a unified way as functions of the normalised pulse energy. The possibi lity for bistable behaviour of the solitary waves is examined and a ne w type of solitary wave bistability (bright-dark) is introduced. The r ole of the geometry of the waveguide and the appropriate materials for experimental observation of such waves are also discussed. (C) 1997 E lsevier Science B.V.