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Photonics

Rogue waves surface in light

Nature volume 450, pages 953–954 (2007)Cite this article

How do the freak waves that haunt seafarers' nightmares arise? We don't know, is the short answer — but the discovery of a similar phenomenon in optical waves might assist in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Until now, perhaps. On page 1054 of this issue3, Solli et al. detail a series of experiments in a 'nonlinear' optical medium — a photonic crystal fibre — that could enhance our understanding of the physics underlying rogue-wave formation and propagation. The authors claim to have found an optical counterpart of the hydrodynamic rogue wave. It occurs in a system that can be studied in a controlled way using off-the-shelf components, and that delivers results that are readily comparable with well-established theoretical and numerical models.

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Figure 1: Science fact.

NOAA/NWS

Figure 2: Rogue generation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dong-Il Yeom and Benjamin J. Eggleton are in the Centre for Ultrahigh-Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. yeom@physics.usyd.edu.au egg@physics.usyd.edu.au ,

    Dong-Il Yeom & Benjamin J. Eggleton

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  1. Dong-Il Yeom
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  2. Benjamin J. Eggleton
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Yeom, DI., Eggleton, B. Rogue waves surface in light. Nature 450, 953–954 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/450953a

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