Excitability mediated by dissipative solitons in nonlinear optical cavities

Abstract

Cavity solitons, which are dissipative solitons with a finite extension that appear in the transverse plane of nonlinear optical cavities, have been advocated for use in fast and compact optical information storage. We discuss the instabilities that can affect cavity solitons appearing in Kerr cavities. In particular, cavity solitons may exhibit a Hopf bifurcation leading to self-pulsating behavior, which is then followed by the destruction of the oscillation in a saddle-loop bifurcation. Beyond this point, there is a regime of excitable cavity solitons which appear when suitable perturbations are applied. Excitability is characterized by the nonlinear response of the system upon the application of an external stimulus. Only stimuli exceeding a threshold value are able to elicit a full and well-defined response in the system. In the case of cavity solitons, excitability emerges from the spatial dependence, since the system does not exhibit any excitable behavior locally. We demonstrate the existence of two different mechanisms which lead to excitability, pending on the profile of the pump field. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.