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This work introduces a systematic approach for the development of Kretschmann configuration-based biosensors designed for non-invasive urine glucose detection. The methodology encompasses the utilization of various semiconductors, including Silicon (Si), Germanium (Ge), Gallium Nitride (GaN), Aluminum Nitride (AlN), and Indium Nitride (InN), in combination with a bimetallic layer (comprising Au and Ag films of equal thickness) to enhance the biosensor sensitivity. Additionally, 2D nanomaterials, such as Black Phosphorus and Graphene, are integrated into the semiconductor layers to enhance performance further. These configurations are meticulously optimized through the application of the transfer matrix method (TMM), and the sensing parameters are assessed using the angular modulation method. Among the semiconductors, AlN and GaN exhibit superior results. On these substrates, Graphene and Black phosphorous (BP) layers are applied, resulting in four final structures (thicknesses in nm): BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/Si(6)/BP(0.53)/Biosample, BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/AlN(14)/BP(0.53)/Biosample, BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/GaN(12)/BP(0.53)/Biosample, and BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/GaN(12)/Graphene(0.34)/Biosample. These biosensors achieve Sensitivity(° /RIU) and Figure of Merit (FoM) (1/RIU) of 380, 360, 440, 400, and 58.5, 90, 90.65, and 82.4, respectively. Subsequently, these high-performing sensors undergo testing with actual urine glucose samples. Among them, two biosensors, BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/AlN(14)/BP (0.53)/Biosample and BK7/Au(26)/Ag(26)/GaN(14)/Graphene(0.34)/Biosample, exhibit outstanding performance, with sensitivities (° /RIU) and FoM (1/RIU) of 394.44 & 294.44, and 112.6 & 92.01 respectively. A comparison is also made with relevant previously published work, revealing improved performance in glucose detection.

Abstract: We study nonlinear interactions between discrete optical solitons that propagate in different regimes of diffraction, and the nonlinear scattering of dispersive waves by local optical potentials. It is well known in optics that when linear coherent waves meet, they interfere without interactions. Linear waves also scatter through local optical structures not exchanging any power with the guided modes of these structures. As a focusing Kerr nonlinearity is present, such linearly-inhibited phenomena can exist. Our studies are performed in silica and AlGaAs nonlinear waveguides, excited by ultra-short pulses in the near infrared.

In this work, three novel surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors based on the Kretschmann configuration are proposed. The optimized structural designs of Sensor 1 [BK7/Si (42 nm)/Au (25 nm)/Ag (25 nm)/Si3N4 (18 nm)/sensing medium] and Sensor 2 [BK7/Si (10 nm)/Au (30 nm)/Ag (30 nm)/Si3N4 (20 nm)/sensing medium] incorporate bimetallic layers of gold (Au) and silver (Ag), while Sensor 3 [BK7/Si (32 nm)/Ag (25 nm)/Si3N4 (20 nm)/sensing medium] includes only an Ag layer. These biosensors feature silicon (Si) and silicon nitride (Si3N4) as dielectric layers. The study uses the transfer matrix method to optimize the sensors and evaluates their performance using the angle modulation method. Results indicate that reverse optimization, optimizing the Si3N4 layer before the Si layer, yields significantly better performance than conventional optimization. Sensor 2 outperforms Sensor 1 and Sensor 3, demonstrating superior sensitivity, detection accuracy (DA), and figure of merit (FoM). The maximum sensitivity ( ${S}$ ), DA, and FoM for Sensor 1 are calculated as 440°/RIU, 0.1470 1/degree, and 64.70 1/RIU, respectively. Sensors 2 and Sensor 3 achieve even higher performance when analyzed using reverse optimization, with their sensitivity ( ${S}$ ), DA, and FoM values at 460°/RIU, 0.2222 1/degree, 102.222 1/RIU, and 460°/RIU, 0.2197 1/degree, 101.09 1/RIU, respectively. These novel SPR sensors demonstrate exceptional performance, as substantiated by a thorough comparison to the recently published works in the field of biomedical applications. This comparison underscores the sensors’ considerable potential in biosensing and biomedicine.

Nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) is among the most advanced techniques for obtaining ultrashort pulses with excellent optical performance. However, it is challenging to design environmentally stable NPE fiber oscillators using only polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers. Here, we use the same PM fiber and non-reciprocal phase shifter to design two different devices, which are capable of acting as effective NPE saturable absorbers (SAs) in two all-PM linear cavity fiber lasers. These two laser setups differ in the position of the non-reciprocal phase shifter, the presence of which is crucial for the proposed fiber lasers to reduce their mode-locking thresholds and achieve high repetition rates above 100 MHz. The mode-locking principle and pulse evolution in the laser cavity are investigated theoretically. The first all-PM fiber oscillator emits sub-200 fs stretched pulses with low peak powers. The second oscillator, with a simpler architecture, directly delivers stretched pulses with high peak powers, the spectral bandwidth greater than 30 nm, and the pulse duration less than 90 fs. To the best of our knowledge, 79 fs achieved in this design is the shortest pulse duration provided by PM fiber lasers using NPE mode-lockers.

Soliton molecules (SMs) are fundamentally important modes in nonlinear optical systems. It is a challenge to experimentally produce SMs with the required temporal separation (TS) in mode-locked fiber lasers. Here, we propose and realize an experimental scenario for harnessing SM dynamics in a laser setup. In particular, we tailor SMs in a mode-locked laser controlled by second-order group-velocity dispersion and dispersion losses: the real part of dispersion maintains the balance between the dispersion and nonlinearity, while the dispersion loss determines the balance of gain and losses. The experimental results demonstrate that the dispersion loss makes it possible to select desired values of the TS in bound pairs of SMs in the system. Tunability of a SM’s central wavelength and the corresponding hysteresis are addressed too. The demonstrated regime allows us to create multiple SMs with preselected values of the TS and central wavelength, which shows the potential of our setup for the design of optical data-processing schemes.

We introduce a scheme of a photonic coupler built of two parallel topological-insulator slab waveguides with the intrinsic Kerr nonlinearity, separated by a lattice spacing. Josephson oscillations (JOs) of a single edge quasi-soliton (QS) created in one slab, and of a pair of QSs created in two slabs, are considered. The single QS jumping between the slabs is subject to quick radiative decay. However, the JOs of the co-propagating QS pair may be essentially more robust, as one QS absorbs dispersive waves emitted by the other. The most robust JO regime is featured by the pair of QSs with phase shift π between them.

We address the propagation of vortex beams with the circular Airy–Gaussian shape in a (2+1)-dimensional optical waveguide modeled by the fractional nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Systematic analysis of autofocusing of the beams reveals a strongly non-monotonous dependence of peak intensity in the focal plane on the corresponding Lévy index α, with a strong maximum at α∼1.4. Effects of the nonlinearity strength, the ratio of widths of the Airy and Gaussian factors in the input, as well as the beams’ vorticity on the autofocusing dynamics are explored. In particular, multiple autofocusing events occur if the nonlinearity is strong enough. Under the action of azimuthal modulational instability, an axisymmetric beam may split into a set of separating bright spots. In the case of strong fractality (for α close to one), the nonlinear beams self-trap, after the first instance of autofocusing, into a breathing vortical quasi-soliton. Radiation forces induced by the beams’ field are considered too, and a capture position for a probe nanoparticle is thus identified.

We report symmetry-breaking and restoring bifurcations of solitons in a fractional Schrödinger equation with cubic or cubic–quintic (CQ) nonlinearity and a parity–time-symmetric potential, which may be realized in optical cavities. Solitons are destabilized at the bifurcation point, and, in the case of CQ nonlinearity, the stability is restored by an inverse bifurcation. Two mutually conjugate branches of ghost states (GSs), with complex propagation constants, are created by the bifurcation, solely in the case of fractional diffraction. While GSs are not true solutions, direct simulations confirm that their shapes and results of their stability analysis provide a “blueprint” for the evolution of genuine localized modes in the system.

We experimentally investigate a nonlinear switching mechanism in a dual-core highly nonlinear optical fiber. We focus the input stream of femtosecond pulses on one core only, to identify transitions between inter-core oscillations, self-trapping in the cross core, and self-trapping of the pulse in the straight core. A model based on the system of coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations provides surprisingly good agreement with the experimental findings.

Mode-locking is a process in which different modes of an optical resonator establish stable synchronization through non-linear interactions. This self-organization underlies light sources that enable many modern scientific applications, such as ultrafast and high-field optics and frequency combs. Despite this, mode-locking has almost exclusively referred to the self-organization of light in a single dimension—time. Here we present a theoretical approach—attractor dissection—to understand three-dimensional spatiotemporal mode-locking. The key idea is to find a specific, minimal reduced model for each distinct type of three-dimensional pulse, and thus identify the important intracavity effects responsible for its formation and stability. An intuition for the results follows from the minimum loss principle, the idea that a laser strives to find the configuration of intracavity light that minimizes loss (maximizes gain extraction). Through this approach, we identify and explain several distinct forms of spatiotemporal mode-locking. These phases of coherent laser light have no analogues in one dimension and are supported by measurements of the three-dimensional field, which reveals spatiotemporal mode-locked states that comprise more than 107cavity modes. Our results should facilitate the discovery and understanding of new higher-dimensional forms of coherent light which, in turn, may enable new applications.

We produce transmission and reflection spectra of the anti-directional coupler (ADC) composed of linearly coupled positive- and negative-refractive-index arms, with intrinsic Kerr nonlinearity. Both reflection and transmission feature two highly amplified peaks at two distinct wavelengths in a certain range of values of the gain, making it possible to design a wavelength-selective mode-amplification system. We also predict that a blend of gain and loss in suitable proportions can robustly enhance reflection spectra that are detrimentally affected by the attenuation, in addition to causing red and blue shifts owing to the Kerr effect. In particular, ADC with equal gain and loss coefficients is considered in necessary detail.

We introduce a model which gives rise to self-trapping of fundamental and higher-order localized states in a one-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation with fractional diffraction and the strength of the self-defocusing nonlinearity growing steeply enough from the center to periphery. The model can be implemented in a planar optical waveguide. Stability regions are identified for the fundamental and dipole (single-node) states in the plane of the Lévy index and the total power (norm), while states of higher orders are unstable. Evolution of unstable states is investigated too, leading to spontaneous conversion towards stable modes with fewer node.

Following the concept of PT-symmetric couplers, we propose a linearly coupled system of nonlinear waveguides, made of positive- and negative-index materials, which carry, respectively, gain and loss. We report novel bi- and multistability states pertaining to transmitted and reflective intensities, which are controlled by the ratio of the gain and loss coefficients, and phase mismatch between the waveguides. These states offer transmission regimes with extremely low threshold intensities for transitions between coexisting states, and very large amplification ratios between the input and output intensities leading to an efficient way of controlling light with light.

We elaborate one- and two-dimensional (1D and 2D) models of media with self-repulsive cubic nonlinearity, whose local strength is subject to spatial modulation that admits the existence of flat-top solitons of various types, including fundamental ones, 1D multipoles, and 2D vortices. Previously, solitons of this type were only produced by models with competing nonlinearities. The present setting may be implemented in optics and Bose–Einstein condensates. The 1D version gives rise to an exact analytical solution for stable flat-top solitons, and generic families may be predicted by means of the Thomas–Fermi approximation. Stability of the obtained flat-top solitons is analyzed by means of the linear-stability analysis and direct simulations. Fundamental solitons and 1D multipoles with k=1 and 2 nodes, as well as vortices with winding number m=1, are completely stable. For multipoles with k≥3 and vortices with m≥2, alternating stripes of stability and instability are identified in their parameter spaces.

We consider the model of fiber-laser cavities near the zero-dispersion point, based on the complex Ginzburg–Landau equation with the cubic-quintic nonlinearity and third-order dispersion (TOD) term. It is known that this model supports stable dissipative solitons. We demonstrate that the same model gives rise to several specific families of robust bound states of solitons. There are both stationary and dynamical bound states, with constant or oscillating separation between the bound solitons. Stationary states are multistable, corresponding to different values of the separation. Following the increase of the TOD coefficient, the stationary bound state with the smallest separation gives rise to the oscillatory one through the Hopf bifurcation. Further growth of TOD leads to a bifurcation transforming the oscillatory bound state into a chaotically oscillating one. Families of multistable three- and four-soliton complexes are found too, the ones with the smallest separation between the solitons again ending by the transition to oscillatory states through the Hopf bifurcation.

We study the generation of dissipative solitons (DSs) in the model of the fiber-laser cavities under the combined action of cubic-quintic nonlinearity, multiphoton absorption and/or multiphoton emission (nonlinear gain), and gain dispersion. A random component of the group-velocity dispersion (GVD) is included too. The DS creation and propagation are studied by means of a variational approximation and direct simulations, which are found to be in reasonable agreement. With a proper choice of the gain, robust DS operation regimes are predicted for different combinations of multiphoton absorption and emission, in spite of the presence of the perturbation in the form of the random GVD. Importantly, the zero background around the solitons remains stable in the presence of the (necessary) linear gain. The solitons are stable too against a certain (realistic) level of noise. Another essential finding is that the quintic gain in the form of three-photon emission (3PE) offers an alternative mechanism for supporting stable solitons, provided that it is not too strong. The DSs coexist in low- and high-amplitude forms, for a given value of their width. The low-amplitude DS is stable, while its high-amplitude counterpart is subject to the blowup instability, in the presence of the 3PE. Interactions between DSs show various scenarios of the creation of breather states through merger of the two solitons.

We show that media with inhomogeneous defocusing cubic nonlinearity growing toward the periphery can support a variety of stable vortex clusters nested in a common localized envelope. Nonrotating symmetric clusters are built from an even number of vortices with opposite topological charges, located at equal distances from the origin. Rotation makes the clusters strongly asymmetric, as the centrifugal force shifts some vortices to the periphery, while others approach the origin, depending on the topological charge. We obtain such asymmetric clusters as stationary states in the rotating coordinate frame, identify their existence domains, and show that the rotation may stabilize some of them.

Conversion of truncated Airy waves (AWs) carried by the second-harmonic (SH) component into axisymmetric χ^2 solitons is considered in a 2D system with quadratic nonlinearity. The spontaneous conversion is driven by the parametric instability of the SH wave. The input in the form of the AW vortex is also considered. As a result, one, two, or three stable solitons emerge in a well-defined form, unlike the recently studied 1D setting, where the picture is obscured by radiation jets. Shares of the total power captured by the emerging solitons and conversion efficiency are found as functions of parameters of the AW input.

Pulse trains growing from modulated continuous waves (CWs) are considered, using solutions of the Hirota equation for solitons on a finite background. The results demonstrate that pulses extracted from the maximally compressed trains can propagate, preserving their shape and forming robust arrays. The dynamics of double high-power pulse trains produced by modulated CWs in a model of optical fibers, including the Raman effect and other higher-order terms, is considered in detail as well. It is demonstrated that the double trains propagate in a robust form, with frequencies shifted by the Raman effect.

Spontaneous creation of solitons in quadratic media by the downconversion (i.e., parametric instability against the generation of fundamental-frequency excitations) from the truncated Airy-wave (AW) mode in the second-harmonic component is studied. Parameter regions are identified for the generation of one, two, and three solitons, with additional small-amplitude “jets.” Shares of the total power carried by individual solitons are found. Also considered are soliton patterns generated by the downconversion from a pair of AWs bending in opposite directions.

We report on new types of two-component one-dimensional dark solitons (DSs) in a dual-core waveguide model with normal group-velocity dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity in both cores, the coupling between which is also dispersive. In the presence of the dispersive coupling, quiescent DSs supported by the zero-frequency background are always gray, being stable with the out-of-phase background, i.e., for opposite signs of the fields in the cores. In contrast, the background with a nonzero frequency supports quiescent black solitons which may be stable for both out-of-phase and in-phase backgrounds, if the dispersive coupling is sufficiently strong. Only DSs supported by the out-of-phase background admit an extension to the case of nonzero phase mismatch between the cores.

We consider linear and nonlinear modes pinned to a grating-free (gapless) layer placed between two symmetric or asymmetric semi-infinite Bragg gratings (BGs), with a possible phase shift between them, in a medium with the uniform Kerr nonlinearity. The asymmetry is defined by a difference between bandgap widths in the two BGs. In the linear system, exact defect modes (DMs) are found. Composite gap solitons pinned to the central layer are also found in analytical and numerical forms in the nonlinear model. In the asymmetric system existence boundaries for the DMs and gap solitons, due to the competition between attraction to the gapless layer and repulsion from the reflectivity step, are obtained analytically. Stability boundaries for solitons in the asymmetric system are identified by means of direct simulations. Collisions of moving BG solitons with the gapless layer are also studied.

Scenarios for controllable creation, trapping, and holding of single and multiple solitons in a specially designed nonlinear Bragg grating (BG) are proposed. The setting includes a chirped BG segment, which is linked via a local defect to a uniform BG with a built-in array of defects. A parabolic relation between the trapping position of the incident soliton and its power is obtained. Simultaneous trapping of two and three solitons at different locations is also demonstrated.

We introduce a mechanism to stabilize spatiotemporal solitons in Kerr nonlinear media, based on the dispersion of linear coupling between the field components forming the soliton states. Specifically, we consider solitons in a two-core guiding structure with inter-core coupling dispersion (CD). We show that CD profoundly affects properties of the solitons, causing the complete stabilization of the otherwise highly unstable spatiotemporal solitons in Kerr media with focusing nonlinearity. We also find that the presence of CD stimulates the formation of bound states, which, however, are unstable.

We consider bright solitons supported by a symmetric inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinearity growing rapidly enough toward the periphery of the medium, combined with an antisymmetric gain–loss profile. Despite the absence of any symmetric modulation of the linear refractive index, which is usually required to establish a parity-time (PT) symmetry in the form of a purely real spectrum of modes, we show that the PT symmetry is never broken in the present system, and that the system always supports stable bright solitons, i.e., fundamental and multi-pole ones. This fact is connected to the nonlinearizability of the underlying evolution equation. The increase of the gain–loss strength results, in lieu of the PT symmetry breaking, in merger of pairs of different soliton branches, such as fundamental and dipole, or tripole and quadrupole ones. The fundamental and dipole solitons remain stable at arbitrarily large values of the gain–loss coefficient.

The creation of stable 1D and 2D localized modes in lossy nonlinear media is a fundamental problem in optics and plasmonics. This article gives a mini review of theoretical methods elaborated on for this purpose, using localized gain applied at one or several hot spots (HS). The introduction surveys a broad class of models for which this approach was developed. Other sections focus in some detail on basic 1D continuous and discrete systems, where the results can be obtained, partly or fully, in an analytical form (and verified by comparison with numerical results), which provides deeper insight into the nonlinear dynamics of optical beams in dissipative nonlinear media. Considered, in particular, are the single and double HS in the usual waveguide with the self-focusing (SF) or self-defocusing (SDF) Kerr nonlinearity, which gives rise to rather sophisticated results in spite of apparent simplicity of the model, solitons attached to a PT-symmetric dipole embedded into the SF or SDF medium, gap solitons pinned to an HS in a Bragg grating, and discrete solitons in a 1D lattice with a hot site.

The concept of the PT symmetry, originating from the quantum field theory, has been intensively investigated in optics, stimulated by the similarity between the Schrödinger equation and the paraxial wave equation governing the propagation of light in guiding structures. We go beyond the paraxial approximation and demonstrate, solving the full set of the Maxwell’s equations for the light propagation in deeply subwavelength waveguides and periodic lattices with balanced gain and loss, that the PT symmetry may stay unbroken in this setting. Moreover, the PT symmetry in subwavelength guiding structures may be restored after being initially broken upon the increase of gain and loss. Critical gain/loss levels, at which the breakup and subsequent restoration of the PT symmetry occur, strongly depend on the scale of the structure.

We study the dynamics of two-dimensional spatial solitons in the structured optical medium modeled by the complex Ginzburg–Landau equation with cubic–quintic nonlinearity and a spatially periodic modulation of the local gain–loss coefficient [a dissipative lattice (DL)]. The analysis, following the variation of the DL’s amplitude and period, reveals several dynamical scenarios: stable or unstable propagation of a single dissipative soliton (the unstable propagation entails generation of an irregular multisoliton cluster), transformation of the input soliton into stable or unstable regular clusters patterned as the underlying DL, and decay of the input. Most results are obtained by means of systematic simulations, but the boundary of the single-soliton stability domain is explained analytically.