Polarization domain walls in optical fibres as topological bits for data transmission

Abstract

Domain walls are topological defects that occur at symmetry-breaking phase transitions. Although domain walls have been intensively studied in ferromagnetic materials, where they nucleate at the boundary of neighbouring regions of oppositely aligned magnetic dipoles, their equivalents in optics have not been fully explored so far. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the existence of a universal class of polarization domain walls in the form of localized polarization knots in conventional optical fibres. We exploit their binding properties for optical data transmission beyond the Kerr limits of normally dispersive fibres. In particular, we demonstrate how trapping energy in a well-defined train of polarization domain walls allows undistorted propagation of polarization knots at a rate of 28 GHz along a 10 km length of normally dispersive optical fibre. These results constitute the first experimental observation of kink–antikink solitary wave propagation in nonlinear fibre optics.

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