Engineering Rogue Waves via Multimode Interactions in Integrated Waveguides

Abstract

We explore rogue wave formation in multimode silicon nitride (Si$_3$N$_4$) waveguides with multimode nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation-based simulations. Pure fundamental-mode excitation produces smooth propagation without extreme events, whereas higher-order modes or multimode superpositions yield heavy-tailed statistics with bursts exceeding the $8\sigma$ threshold. These results reveal that rogue wave generation in integrated waveguides is controlled not only by material properties such as nonlinearity and dispersion but also by modal excitation and intermodal nonlinear interactions. Our results identify modal control as a new degree of freedom for engineering extreme spatiotemporal events on photonic chips, with implications for on-chip supercontinuum generation, frequency combs, and nonlinear wave management.