Femtosecond pulse switching in a fiber coupler with third order dispersion and self-steepening effects

A numerical study of femtosecond pulse propagation and switching in a dual-core nonlinear directional coupler with the consideration of third order dispersion and self-steepening effects is reported. The Split Step Fourier Method (SSFM) is used to investigate the switching characteristics of nonlinear directional couplers. It is observed that the energy transfer from core to core is not affected by changing the input pulse shapes except super-Gaussian. While the normalized coupling co-efficient and the input peak power dominate the coupling characteristics, the effects of third order dispersion (TOD) and self-steepening (SS) are also reported.