Self-Chaotization in Coupled Optical Waveguides

We consider theoretically two coupled optical waveguides with a varying barrier height along the waveguides direction. The barrier could be constructed by the elongated island with a reduced refractive index (which acts as a potential barrier), such that in the middle region it splits a waveguide into two weakly coupled parts. It is predicted by numerical simulations and analytical consideration that the presence of some imperfection of the system parameters can cause splitting of injected laser beam and one will observe two intensity maximums at the output, while for small imperfections the input and output beam intensity distributions will be the same. The switching between two regimes could be achieved changing spectral width of the beam or refractive index of the island. This nontrivial effect is explained by possibility of transitions between the different eigenstates of the system in the region of large potential barrier heights. The mentioned effect could be used for all-optical readdressing and filtering purposes.