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Rogue waves surface in light

2007; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 450; Issue: 7172 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/450953a

1476-4687

Dong‐Il Yeom, Benjamin J. Eggleton,

Advanced Fiber Optic Sensors

How do the freak waves that haunt seafarers' nightmares arise? We don't know, is the short answer — but the discovery of a similar phenomenon in optical waves might assist in getting to the bottom of the mystery. Mariners have known for centuries that freak, giant waves can appear out of the blue in the ocean. The probability of encountering such a 'rogue' wave was recently found to be much larger than expected from conventional wave-amplitude statistics. In an effort to understand the physics of such events, Solli et al. investigate the concept of optical rogue waves. Using a new real-time detection technique, they study a system — based on a microstructured optical fibre — that exposes extremely steep, large optical waves as rare outcomes from an injection of a population of almost-identical optical pulses. The optical rogue waves arise when random noise perturbs the initially smooth pulses with a certain frequency shift and within a well-defined time window.