Instability in an illuminated nonlinear waveguide: a phase-conjugation effect
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Updated: Jun 20, 2026

Fabrication And Characterization Of Photonic Crystal Slow Light Waveguides And Cavities
Published on: November 30, 2012
Abstract:
We consider a laser beam incident normally upon a waveguide with a Kerr nonlinearity. Although the laser is uniform in the plane of the waveguide, we show that the waveguide fields can be unstable to growth, forming coherent periodic structures. The initial, exponential time dependence is determined, and we find a steady-state solution. Finally, we note that the mechanism necessary for this instability is that responsible for phase conjugation by means of degenerate four-wave mixing.
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