Analysis of Pulse Propagation Through a Nonlinear Directional Coupler

Nonlinear directional coupler (NLDC) has aroused a lot of interest since it has been first proposed. A lot of proposals have been suggested for its as an optical signal processing unit. A successful application of NLDC as an optical processing unit would eliminate the electronic bottleneck that currently prohibits the data processing and transfer rates in optical networks. To our knowledge there is no treatise which deals with the pulse evolution equation in NLDC. In this paper we have tried to gain deeper insight into the functioning of NLDC by deriving the pulse evolution equations and analyzing their implications. We have also provided a scheme to solve the equation numerically. Finally we have provided results of the simulations for some cases.