Temporal dynamics of incoherent waves in noninstantaneous response nonlinear Kerr media

Bertrand Kibler (1) , Claire Michel (2) , Josselin Garnier (3, 4) , Antonio Picozzi (1)

1 ICB - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée
3 LPMA - Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires
4 LJLL - Laboratoire Jacques-Louis Lions

We consider the temporal evolution of an incoherent optical wave that propagates in a noninstantaneous response nonlinear medium, such as single mode optical fibers. In contrast with the expected Raman-like spectral redshift due to a delayed nonlinear response, we show that a highly noninstantaneous response leads to a genuine modulational instability of the incoherent optical wave. We derive a Vlasov-like kinetic equation that provides a detailed description of this process of incoherent modulational instability in the temporal domain.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Bertrand Kibler, Claire Michel, Josselin Garnier, Antonio Picozzi. Temporal dynamics of incoherent waves in noninstantaneous response nonlinear Kerr media. Optics Letters, 2012, 37 (13), pp.2472-2474. ⟨10.1364/OL.37.002472⟩. ⟨hal-00844376⟩