Switching of optical vortices in nonlinear annular couplers

Abstract

We suggest an annular waveguide coupler for switching the angular momentum of light. We study linear and nonlinear coupling of both power and momentum of an optical vortex beam launched into one of the ring cores, and demonstrate that the switching takes place well below the collapse threshold. The switching is more effective for the inner-ring excitation since it triggers more sharply and for the lower power enough to avoid the beam azimuthal instability.