of nonlinear optical physics such as the theory of relativistic ... know and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India,.
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Introduction to the Special Issue on Nonlinear Optics
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HE FIELD of nonlinear optics has grown enormously in recent years since its advent in the early 1960s, soon after the invention of the laser. Nowadays, nonlinear optics has evolved into many different branches, depending on the form of the material used for studying the nonlinear phenomena. The growth of research in nonlinear optics is closely linked to the rapid technological advances that have occurred in related fields, such as ultrafast phenomena, fiber optics, and optical communications. Nonlinear-optics activities range from the fundamental studies related to the interaction between matter and radiation to the development of the devices, components, and systems of tremendous commercial interest for widespread technologies such as optical telecommunications, medicine, and biology. This special issue intends to give a wide, although necessarily limited, overview of ongoing research issues and hot applications involving nonlinear optics. The application of nonlinear optics that has experienced the most dramatic technological development and economic impact in recent years is definitely related to the design of modern optical communication systems. On the one hand, the nonlinear response of optical fibers leads to impairments in the signal transmission quality in long-haul fiber-optics links. For example, the input power in a fiber is limited by the onset of stimulated Brillouin or Raman scattering, which are the subject of two separate papers in this issue. On the other hand, fiber nonlinearity can be exploited to advantage for counteracting the dispersive pulse broadening through the concept of optical solitons, or for compensating fiber losses through the use of stimulated Raman scattering. Several papers in the issue deal with the propagation of optical soliton signals in fiber-optics transmission links designed with periodic optical amplification and dispersion management. Currently, hot topics that are included in this issue include the interaction among solitons that belong to different wavelength-multiplexed channels, the coupling of nonlinearity, and polarization-mode dispersion, and the interplay between Raman scattering and solitons. Other papers report on the recent advances in the design of parametric and Raman-amplification techniques for providing wide-band amplification in addition or as an alternative to the use of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). The modeling of EDFAs with high dopant concentrations and large optical powers is also discussed in a paper of the issue. Since the nearly instantaneous response of optical fibers permitting single-channel bit rates as high as 1 Tb/s, the present bottleneck to the channel capacity is set by the limited speed
Publisher Item Identifier S 1077-260X(02)06224-X.
of electronics required for modulation and switching of the information. This issue motivates the research and development of nonlinear optical devices for all-optical data processing and wavelength conversion. Issues such as supercontinuum generation in microstructure fibers, all-optical packet switching and nonlinear coupling in waveguides and resonators, signal processing and spatial soliton propagation in semiconductor microrings and in photorefractive materials, and wavelength conversion are covered in the present issue. In particular, the availability of a wavelength conversion functionality will be of great relevance in future all-optical networks. The conversion methods depend on the nonlinear optical material, and the examples discussed in this issue range from second-harmonic generation (SHG) to quasi-phase matching in optical waveguides to semiconductor optical amplifiers and highly nonlinear fibers. Other papers in the issue cover a variety of topics that are indicative of the breadth of the field of nonlinear optics. Several papers are devoted to the fundamental aspects of nonlinear optical physics such as the theory of relativistic harmonic generation and the propagation of partially coherent light in nonlinear optical media. Photonic crystals have attracted considerable attention recently although most of the research has so far focused on the linear properties only. Several papers in this issue focus on the nonlinear optics of photonic crystals and photonic-crystal fibers and discuss the issues related to the coupled-mode theory and supercontinuum generation. Novel adaptive methods to control the propagation of optical pulses in fibers and to create transversely patterned gratings are also presented. The modeling of the nonlinear response of resonant optical materials in the form of two-level atoms or quantum wells is discussed in one paper. Two papers in this issue consider the nonlinear properties of terahertz radiation in semiconductor quantum wells. The breadth and the depth of the nonlinear-optics research reported in this special issue is truly remarkable and is indicative of the fact that the field of nonlinear optics is not showing any sign of maturing even after 40 years of its beginning. It is our sincere hope that the readers of this journal will find this issue relevant to their research and will enjoy reading it. We take this opportunity to thank the large number of reviewers who provided their comments in a timely fashion. Special issues such as this one cannot succeed without the support of the scientists involved in the research field to which the issue is devoted. Thanks are also due to the IEEE Editorial Staff members, Janet Reed and Linda Matarazzo, who did an excellent job of providing the editorial and management services in a timely and professional fashion.
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IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2002
GOVIND P. AGRAWAL, Guest Editor The Institute of Optics University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 USA AKIRA HASEGAWA, Guest Editor Soliton Communications Higashiyama-ku Kyoto, 605–0035 Japan YURI KIVSHAR, Guest Editor Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering Australian National University Canberra, ACT 02000 Australia STEFAN WABNITZ, Guest Editor Xtera Communications Inc. Allen, TX 75013 USA Govind P. Agrawal (M’83–SM’86–F’96) received the B.S. degree from the University of Lucknow and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India, in 1969, 1971, and 1974, respectively. After holding positions at the Ecole Polytechnique, France, the City University of New York, New York, and AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, he joined the faculty of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester where he is a professor of optics, in 1989. His research interests focus on quantum electronics, nonlinear optics, and laser physics. In particular, he has contributed significantly to the fields of semiconductor lasers, nonlinear fiber optics, and optical communications. He is an author or coauthor of more than 300 research papers, several book chapters and review articles, and four books. Dr. Agrawal is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA). He has participated many times in organizing the technical conferences sponsored by the IEEE and the OSA. He was the program cochair in 1999 and the general cochair in 2001 for the Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference. He also chaired a program subcommittee for the Nonlinear Guided Waves and their Applications Conference, in 2001.
Akira Hasegawa (S’58–M’60–SM’78–F’79–LF’97) was born in Tokyo in 1934. He received the B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees from Osaka University, and the Ph.D. degree in plasma physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957, 1959, and 1964, respectively. In 1967, a Doctor of Science degree was conferred on him by Nagoya University. He was an associate professor at Osaka University from 1964 until he joined Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ, in 1968 as a distinguished member of technical staff. In 1991, he returned to Osaka University as a professor of communications engineering. Upon retirement from Osaka University, in 1998, he was appointed to various posts at Kochi University of Technology, Kobe Women’s University, University of California, and Himeji Dokkyo University. He also worked as a consultant to NTT Science and Core Technology Laboratory Group, and to BTG International. He has written over 250 technical papers and several books on optical solitons, plasma physics, electrodynamics and on Japanese cultures. He is a recipient of the 1991 Rank Prize (British), the 1993 Shida Rinzaburo Prize (Japanese Ministry of Post and Telecommunications), the 1993 Hattori (Seiko) Houkou Prize, 1995 Moet Hennessy, Louis Vuitton Da Vinci of Excellence Prize (French), 1995 C&C Prize (Japanese), 1996 Achievement Prize of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers (Japan), 1999 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award, and 2000 James Clerk Maxwell Prize in Plasmas Physics of American Physical Society. He was the Chairman of the Division of Plasma Physics of American Physical Society in 1990 and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Laser, Quantum Electronics of Institute of Electronics Information and Communication Engineers, in 1994. He has served also as a member of planning committee of Kansai Science Forum, as the Chairs of “Soliton Based Total-All Optical Communication-Network Research” of the Japanese Ministry of Post and Telecommunication and as the Chair of “Research and Development of New Node Technology” sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Dr. Hasegawa is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He is a member of the Physical Society of Japan and American Optical Society. His URL is www.solitoncomm.com.
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Yuri Kivshar was born in Kharkov, USSR, in 1959. He received the diploma in physics from the Kharkov University and Ph.D degree in theoretical physics from the USSR Academy of Science and the Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering. During 1988-1991, he visited different research centers in USA, France, and Spain, and in 1991-1993 he spent 18 months at the University of Duesseldorf (Germany) as a Alexander von Humboldt research fellow. In 1993, he accepted an appointment at the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering of the Australian National University where he founded the Nonlinear Physics Group in 2000. In 1999, he was appointed as an Associate Editor of the Physical Review, and in 2002 he was elected to the Australian Academy of Science. He has published more than 230 research papers. His interests include the physics of nonlinear guided waves, solitons, nonlinear atom optics, photonic crystals, and stability of nonlinear waves. He was a recipient of the Medal and Award of the Ukrainian Academy of Science (1989), the International Pnevmatikos Prize in Nonlinear Science (1995), the Pawsey Medal of the Australian Academy of Science (1998).
Stefan Wabnitz obtained the Laurea degree in electronics engineering from the University of Rome "La Sapienza," the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, and the Ph.D. degree in applied electromagnetism from the Italian Ministry of Education, Rome, Italy, in 1982, 1983 and 1988, respectively. Between 1985 and 1996, he has been a researcher of the Optical Communications Department of the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, where he has contributed to the theory of nonlinear wave propagation in optical fibers and waveguides, with particular interest in wave instabilities and soliton phenomena. In 1996, he became full professor of physics at the University of Burgundy, Dijon, France. Since 1999, he has been on leave of absence from the University in order to carry out research and development in the telecommunication industry. He spent first two years working on optical soliton effects for submarine system applications at the Alcatel Research and Innovation Labs in Marcoussis, France. Since 2001, he is Manager of the Advanced Technology Group of Xtera Communications, Allen, TX. He was the general cochair in 1999, and is the program subcommittee chair in 2002 for the Nonlinear Guided Waves and their Applications Conference. In 1998, he was the codirector of an international workshop on optical solitons at Les Houches in France. His current research activities involve nonlinear propagation effects and Raman amplification in high bit rate wavelength-division-multiplexing optical communication systems. He is the author and co-author of over 300 referred papers and conference presentations. Dr. Wabnitz is a member of the Optical Society of America.
