Spatio-temporal instabilities for counterpropagating waves in periodic media.

Nonlinear evolution of coupled forward and backward fields in a multi-layered film is numerically investigated. We examine the role of longitudinal and transverse modulation instabilities in media of finite length with a homogeneous nonlinear susceptibility c((3)). The numerical solution of the nonlinear equations by a beam-propagation method that handles backward waves is described.