Dispersion of Nonlinearity and Modulation Instability in Subwavelength Semiconductor Waveguides

Abstract

Tight confinement of light in subwavelength waveguides induces substantial dispersion of their nonlinear response. We demonstrate that this dispersion of nonlinearity can lead to the modulational instability in the regime of normal group velocity dispersion through the mechanism independent from higher order dispersions of linear waves. A simple phenomenological model describing this effect is the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the intensity dependent group velocity dispersion.