Pulse compression in the interface of nonlinear hetero-structure waveguide arrays

A theory is presented to investigate the propagation behavior of an optical pulse at the interface of two different nonlinear bi-dispersive waveguide arrays. It is found that the peak power and dispersion have great impact on the propagation of the pulse. When the peak power is high enough, the major part of initial pulse can be guided and confined in the interface of this waveguide array. Therefore, an interface-localized wave is formed due to temporal dispersion, discrete diffraction and nonlinearity effects. Because of the interplay between asymmetry discrete diffraction, dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity of hetero-structure waveguide array, the output pulse develops a rectangular-like intensity profile with richer bandwidth, and its power spectrum in the frequency domain is less modulated. Therefore, the output pulse from the heterostructure waveguide array can be compressed more efficiently than that of a homogeneous element.