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Polarization domain walls in optical fibres as topological bits for data transmission

Nature Photonics volume 11, pages 102–107 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Domain walls are topological defects that occur at symmetry-breaking phase transitions. Although domain walls have been intensively studied in ferromagnetic materials, where they nucleate at the boundary of neighbouring regions of oppositely aligned magnetic dipoles, their equivalents in optics have not been fully explored so far. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the existence of a universal class of polarization domain walls in the form of localized polarization knots in conventional optical fibres. We exploit their binding properties for optical data transmission beyond the Kerr limits of normally dispersive fibres. In particular, we demonstrate how trapping energy in a well-defined train of polarization domain walls allows undistorted propagation of polarization knots at a rate of 28 GHz along a 10 km length of normally dispersive optical fibre. These results constitute the first experimental observation of kink–antikink solitary wave propagation in nonlinear fibre optics.

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Figure 1: Experimental set-up.
Figure 2: Experimental observation of polarization domain wall (PDW) solitons.
Figure 3: Experimental data transmission through PDWs.
Figure 4: Polarization segregation phenomenon.

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Acknowledgements

J.F. acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (ERC starting grant PETAL no. 306633, Polarization condEnsation for Telecom AppLications). The authors acknowledge the Conseil Régional de Bourgogne Franche-Comté under the PARI Action Photcom programme as well as the Labex ACTION programme (ANR-11-LABX-0001-01). The authors thank S. Pitois and T. Geisler for discussions, E. Paul for illustrations, and S. Pernot, V. Tissot and B. Sinardet for electronic development. M.Gu. acknowledges support from the European Commission via a Marie Skodowska-Curie Fellowship (IF project AMUSIC – 02702).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne (ICB), UMR 6303 CNRS - Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 9 Avenue Alain Savary, BP 47870, Dijon, 21078, France

    M. Gilles, P.-Y. Bony, A. Picozzi, M. Guasoni & J. Fatome

  2. Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires, University of Paris VII, Paris, 75251, France

    J. Garnier

  3. Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    M. Guasoni

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  1. M. Gilles
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Contributions

J.F., P-Y.B. and M.Gi. performed the experiments. M.Gu., J.G. and A.P. contributed to the theoretical and numerical analysis. All authors participated in analysis of the results. J.F. wrote the paper and supervised the project.

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Correspondence to J. Fatome.

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Gilles, M., Bony, PY., Garnier, J. et al. Polarization domain walls in optical fibres as topological bits for data transmission. Nature Photon 11, 102–107 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.262

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