Modulation Instability of Incoherent Beams in Noninstantaneous Nonlinear Media

Marin Soljacic; Mordechai Segev; Tamer Coskun; Demetrios N. Christodoulides; Ashvin Vishwanath

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.467

Modulation Instability of Incoherent Beams in Noninstantaneous Nonlinear Media

Marin Soljacic, Mordechai Segev, Tamer Coskun, Demetrios N. Christodoulides, and Ashvin Vishwanath

Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 467 – Published 17 January 2000

Abstract

We show that modulation instability can exist with partially spatially incoherent light beams in a noninstantaneous nonlinear environment. For such incoherent modulation instability to occur, the value of the nonlinearity has to exceed a threshold imposed by the degree of spatial coherence.

Received 2 August 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.467

Authors & Affiliations

Marin Soljacic¹, Mordechai Segev^2,3, Tamer Coskun^4,*, Demetrios N. Christodoulides⁴, and Ashvin Vishwanath¹

¹Physics Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
²Physics Department, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
³Electrical Engineering Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544
⁴Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015