Soliton propagation in semiconductor waveguides

Semiconductor waveguides are particularly useful for the observation of nonlinear propagation effect due to their large nonlinear refractive index, low propagation loss and high damage threshold. The material figure of merit clearly indicates two spectral regions over which semiconductors can be used, near the band edge with a self-defocusing nonlinearity and below half the band gap for a pure Kerr response and a self-focusing nonlinearity. Furthermore, a new disordering technique for multiple-quantum-well leads to new and interesting device applications. We will present here some of our results in both of these spectral regions. Bright soliton like pulses in self-defocusing AlGaAs below the band edge