Field renormalization in photonic crystal waveguides

A novel strategy is introduced in order to include variations of the nonlinearity in the nonlinear Schro¨dinger equation. This technique, which relies on renormalization, is in particular well adapted to nanostructured optical systems where the nonlinearity exhibits large variations up to two orders of magnitude larger than in bulk material. We show that it takes into account in a simple and efficient way the specificity of the nonlinearity in nanostructures that is determined by geometrical parameters like the effective mode area and the group index. The renormalization of the nonlinear Schro¨dinger equation is an occasion for physics-oriented considerations and unveils the potential of photonic crystal waveguides for the study of new nonlinear propagation phenomena.