Abstract: We overview our recent theoretical results on spatio-spectral control, diffraction management, and broadband all-optical switching of polychromatic light in periodically curved one and two dimensional arrays of coupled optical waveguides. In particular, we show that polychromatic light beams and patterns produced by white-light and supercontinuum sources can experience wavelength-independent normal, anomalous, or zero diffraction in specially designed structures. We also demonstrate that in the nonlinear regime, it is possible to achieve broadband all-optical switching of polychromatic light in a directional waveguide coupler with special bending of the waveguide axes. Our results suggest novel opportunities for creation of all-optical logical gates and switches which can operate in a very broad frequency region, e.g., covering the entire visible spectrum.

Keywords: diffraction management; all-optical switching; polychromatic light; photonic lattices; supercontinuum;; photonic crystal fiber; supercontinuum generation; dynamic localization; superprism phenomena; directional coupler; lithium-niobate; laser-pulses; lattices; diffraction; solitons

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