Abstract
The emergence of optical fiber tapers allowed for the development of new sensing heads to measure physical and external parameters. In the last five years, investigation became more intense with the rapid development of new types of fiber such as microstructured fiber. This chapter aims to present the latest work based on tapers: single tapers, interferometers based on tapers, tapers combined with other structures such as Bragg gratings or surface plasmon resonance. Finally, it also describes new taper geometries and tapers in microstructured fiber. © 2013 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Abstract
Spatial solitons are robust localized nonlinear waves that are able to propagate without significant changes to their structure. Most of the proposal of the application of solitons uses them to transmit and process information in optical fibers and optical circuits. In the later the solitons can be guided through different paths by presetting some soliton characteristics (such as the phase), and even using some solitons to control the path of other pulses. In this paper, we use these properties of optical spatial solitons in a cubic nonlinear media to have lightons: phonon-like oscillations of a chain of solitonic light pulses. Conceptually, this work aims to explore the dual nature of solitons as a particle-like wave, by considering the displacement wave of solitons in a 1-dimensional chain.

Abstract
Recently, many programs have been developed for simulation or analysis of the different parameters of light propagation in optical fibers, either for sensing or for communication purposes. In this paper, it is shown the COMSOL Multiphysics as a fairly robust and simple program, due to the existence of a graphical environment, to perform simulations with good accuracy. Results are compared with other simulation analysis, focusing on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomena for refractive index sensing in a D-type optical fiber, where the characteristics of the material layers, in terms of the type and thickness, and the residual fiber cladding thickness are optimized. © 2012 The Author(s).

Abstract
In this paper we address soliton-soliton interactions in a nonlinear cubic-quintic optic media, using for that purpose numerical methods and high performance graphics processor unit (GPU) computing. We describe an implementation of GPU-based computational simulations of the generalized Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation, obtaining simulations more than 40 times faster relative to CPU-based simulations, especially in the multidimensional case. We focus our attention in the study of soliton collisions and scattering phenomena that, offering the possibility of steering light with light, open a path towards future optical devices.

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