Propagation of surface solitons in media with uniform and chirped modulated nonlinearities

We address the properties of soliton propagation at the interface between media with uniform and chirped modulated nonlinearities. By changing the chirp parameter and modulation depth p of the nonlinearity, we can control the soliton propagation, including straight transmission, drift left, and drift right. In particular, the formation of a surface soliton does not need a power threshold. Thus, our results offer a new (to our knowledge) method to control the soliton propagation, which potentially applies to optical signal processing and optical switching. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America