Propagation and Interaction of Ultrashort Light Pulses in Nonlinear Media: Numerical Solution of Maxwell Equations

Abstract

Finite-difference time-domain method for numerical solution of Maxwell equations has been applied to the problems of propagation and interaction of ultrashort light pulses in the media with linear dispersion and kerr-like nonlinearity. The evolution of temporal and spectral structures of femtosecond laser pulses has been analyzed in the modes of selfand cross-phase modulation, formation of shock waves, and soliton-like temporal pulses. Interaction of two ultrashort laser pulses in nonlinear media has been studied for the case of collinear propagation. The peculiarities of transformation of spatial-temporal structure of probe pulse have been analyzed numerically in the regime of its reflection from the pump pulse.