Spatial Kerr solitons in optical fibres of finite size cross section: beyond the Townes soliton

We propose a new and efficient numerical method to find spatial solitons in optical fibres with a nonlinear Kerr effect including microstructured ones. A nonlinear non-paraxial scalar model of the electric field in the fibre is used (nonlinear Helmholtz equation) and an iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain the nonlinear solutions using the finite element method. The field is supposed to be harmonic in time and along the direction of invariance of the fibre but inhomogeneous in the cross section. In our approach, we solve a nonlinear eigenvalue problem in which the propagation constant is the eigenvalue. Several examples dealing with step-index fibres and microstructured optical fibres with a finite size cross section are described. In each geometry, a single self-coherent nonlinear solution is obtained. This solution, which also depends on the size of the structure, is different from the Townes soliton—but converges towards it at small wavelengths.