title: Optomechanical self-channeling of light in a suspended planar dual-nanoweb waveguide.
abstract: It is shown that optomechanical forces can cause nonlinear self-channeling of light in a planar dual-slab waveguide. A system of two parallel silica nanowebs, spaced ~100 nm and supported inside a fiber capillary, is studied theoretically and an iterative scheme developed to analyze its nonlinear optomechanical properties. Steady-state field distributions and mechanical deformation profiles are obtained, demonstrating that self-channeling is possible in realistic structures at launched powers as low as a few mW. The differential optical nonlinearity of the self-channeled mode can be as much as 10×10(6) times higher than the corresponding electronic Kerr nonlinearity. It is also intrinsically broadband, does not utilize resonant effects, can be viewed as a consequence of the extreme nonlocality of the mechanical response, and in fact is a notable example of a so-called accessible soliton.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Guenther-Scharowsky-Straße 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Butsch
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Conti
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Biancalana
authors.forename: P St J
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Russell