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Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of Pinned Modes in Nonlinear Gratings with an Embedded Pair of Defects

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Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, Self-Trapping, and Josephson Oscillations

Part of the book series: Progress in Optical Science and Photonics ((POSP,volume 1))

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Abstract

We consider spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in nonlinear periodic structures with two embedded identical defects. We focus on Bragg grating (BGs) in which the defects are formed by local phase shifts. The defects are positioned relatively close to each other, so as to allow the light to couple between them. At low optical energies, i.e., in the linear regime, this system supports two symmetric eigenstates, which have identical intensity distributions but different frequencies. At higher energies, the lower-frequency state becomes unstable against symmetry-breaking perturbations, and the light gets predominantly trapped by one of the defects, leading to an asymmetric field distribution. We analyze the SSB effect for different coupling strengths and conclude that, quite naturally, the symmetry-breaking energy threshold increases with the strength. The symmetric state is stable below the SSB threshold, while the emerging asymmetric mode is stable above the threshold.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ultrahigh-bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) and Institute of Photonics and Optical Sciences (IPOS), School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    I. V. Kabakova, I. Uddin, J. Jeyaratnam & C. M. de Sterke

  2. Department of Physical Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

    B. A. Malomed

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  1. I. V. Kabakova
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  2. I. Uddin
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  3. J. Jeyaratnam
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  1. Faculty of Engineering The Iby and Aladar Fleischman, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel

    Boris A. Malomed

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Kabakova, I.V., Uddin, I., Jeyaratnam, J., Sterke, C.M.d., Malomed, B.A. (2012). Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of Pinned Modes in Nonlinear Gratings with an Embedded Pair of Defects. In: Malomed, B. (eds) Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking, Self-Trapping, and Josephson Oscillations. Progress in Optical Science and Photonics, vol 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10091_2012_22

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