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Physics of highly multimode nonlinear optical systems

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 1018–1030 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 14 February 2023

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Abstract

Linear multimode optical systems have enabled clean experimental observations and the applications of numerous phenomena that continually extend the boundaries of wave physics. The infrastructure that has enabled these studies facilitates the study of an even richer world of nonlinear multimode optical systems. Multimode nonlinear optical physics is full of emergent phenomena, including robust spatial attractors, multimode wave instabilities, and conservative and dissipative multimode solitons. Many of these effects push the limits of existing theoretical techniques, demanding new insights and approaches that could emerge from other fields, such as statistical mechanics, physics-informed machine learning, network science and beyond. Here we provide an overview of recent investigations of wave propagation in highly multimode nonlinear systems, principally multimode fibre waveguides and laser cavities. These systems, with their multifaceted control, low cost, scalability and ultrahigh bandwidth, are ideal physical platforms for exploring—and ultimately applying—high-dimensional nonlinear physics, from orderly but elusive objects like spatiotemporal solitons to dynamical complexity itself, both near and far from equilibrium.

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Fig. 1: Beam self-cleaning in GRIN multimode fibre.
Fig. 2: Multimode solitons and spatiotemporal dynamics in multimode waveguides and cavities.
Fig. 3: Spatiotemporal instabilities of nonlinear waves in multimode waveguides.
Fig. 4: Future directions for MMNLO systems.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

This effort was sponsored, in part, by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research under ONR awards nos. N00014-20-1-2789 and N00014-18-1-2347. Portions of the work were sponsored by the National Science Foundation (ECCS-1912742 and EECS-1711230), the Army Research Office (award no. W911NF1710481), the Simons Foundation (733682) and the BSF (2016381).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Logan G. Wright & Frank W. Wise

  2. Physics & Informatics Laboratories, NTT Research, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA

    Logan G. Wright

  3. CREOL/College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Fan O. Wu & Demetrios N. Christodoulides

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L.G.W. and F.W.W. hold patent number US 10,965,092 B2 on spatiotemporal mode-locking. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Wright, L.G., Wu, F.O., Christodoulides, D.N. et al. Physics of highly multimode nonlinear optical systems. Nat. Phys. 18, 1018–1030 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01691-z

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