Influence of spatial delay on the modulational instability in a composite system with a controllable nonlinearity.

A theoretical investigation of the modulational instability (MI) in a composite system with a nonlocal response function is presented. A composite system of silver nanoparticles in acetone is chosen, whose nonlinearity can be delicately varied by controlling the volume fraction of the constituents, thus enabling the possibility of nonlinearity management. A pump-probe counterpropagation configuration has been assumed, and the interplay between the competing nonlinearities and the nonlocalities in the MI dynamics is systematically explored. A different class of nonlocalities have been considered, and the study reveals that the nonlocality critically depends on the kind of nonlocal function. …