It is ironic that the ideas ofNewton, which described a beam of light as a stream ofparticles made it difficult for him to explain things like thin film interference. Yet these particles, called 'photons', have caused the adjective 'photonic' to gain common usage, when referring to optical phenomena. The purist might argue that only when we are confronted by the particle nature of light should we use the word photonics. Equally, the argument goes on, only when we are face-to face with an integrable system, i. e. one that possesses an infinite number of conserved quantities, should we say soliton rather than solitary wave. Scientists and engineers are pragmatic, however, and they are happy to use the word 'soliton' to describe what appears to be an excitation that is humped, multi humped, or localised long enough for some use to be made of it. The fact that such 'solitons' may stick to each other (fuse) upon collision is often something to celebrate for an application, rather than just evidence that, after all, these are not really solitons, in the classic sense. 'Soliton', therefore, is a widely used term with the qualification that we are constantly looking out for deviant behaviour that draws our attention to its solitary wave character. In the same spirit, 'photonics' is a useful generic cover-all noun, even when 'electromagnetic theory' or 'optics' would suffice."

This book is based on the contributions to the 17th International School of Materials Sci ence and Technology, entitled Nonlinear Waves in Solid State Physics. This was held as a NATO Advanced Study Institute at the Ettore Majorana Centre in Erice, Sicily between the st th 1 and 15 July 1989, and attracted almost 100 participants from over 20 different countries. The book covers the fundamental properties of nonlinear waves in solid state materials, dealing with both theory and experiment. The aim is to emphasise the methods underpinning the important new developments in this area. The material is organised into subject areas that can broadly be classified into the following groups: the theory of nonlinear surface and guided waves in self-focusing magnetic and non-magnetic materials; nonlinear effects at in terfaces; nonlinear acoustoelectronic and surface acoustic waves; Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of nonlinear problems; nonlinear effects in optical fibres; resonance phenomena; and nonlinear integrated optics. The chapters have been grouped together according to these classifications as closely as possible, but it should be borne in mind that although there is much overlap of ideas, each chapter is essentially independent of the others. We would like to acknowledge the sponsorship of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division, the European Physical Society, the National Science Foundation of the USA, the European Research Office, the Italian Ministry of Education, the Italian Ministry of Scientific and Technological Research, the Sicilian Regional Government and the Ugo Bordoni Foundation.

It is ironic that the ideas ofNewton, which described a beam of light as a stream ofparticles made it difficult for him to explain things like thin film interference. Yet these particles, called 'photons', have caused the adjective 'photonic' to gain common usage, when referring to optical phenomena. The purist might argue that only when we are confronted by the particle nature of light should we use the word photonics. Equally, the argument goes on, only when we are face-to face with an integrable system, i. e. one that possesses an infinite number of conserved quantities, should we say soliton rather than solitary wave. Scientists and engineers are pragmatic, however, and they are happy to use the word 'soliton' to describe what appears to be an excitation that is humped, multi humped, or localised long enough for some use to be made of it. The fact that such 'solitons' may stick to each other (fuse) upon collision is often something to celebrate for an application, rather than just evidence that, after all, these are not really solitons, in the classic sense. 'Soliton', therefore, is a widely used term with the qualification that we are constantly looking out for deviant behaviour that draws our attention to its solitary wave character. In the same spirit, 'photonics' is a useful generic cover-all noun, even when 'electromagnetic theory' or 'optics' would suffice."

Although it took some time to establish the word, photonics is both widely accepted and used throughout the world and a major area of activity concerns nonlinear materials. In these the nonlinearity mainly arises from second-order or third-order nonlinear optical processes. A restriction is that second-order processes only occur in media that do not possess a centre of symmetry. Optical fibres, on the other hand, being made of silica glass, created by fusing SiO molecules, are made of material with a centre of z symmetry, so the bulk of all processes are governed by third-order nonlinearity. Indeed, optical fibre nonlinearities have been extensively studied for the last thirty years and can be truly hailed as a success story of nonlinear optics. In fact, the fabrication ofsuch fibres, and the exploitation oftheir nonlinearity, is in an advanced stage - not least being their capacity to sustain envelope solitons. What then ofsecond-order nonlinearity? This is also well-known for its connection to second-harmonic generation. It is an immediate concern, however, to understand how waves can mix and conserve both energy and momentum ofthe photons involved. The problem is that the wave vectors cannot be made to match without a great deal of effort, or at least some clever arrangement has to be made - a special geometry, or crystal arrangement. The whole business is called phase matching and an inspection ofthe state-of-the-art today, reveals the subject to be in an advanced state."