We study theoretically two coupled periodically curved optical waveguides with Kerr nonlinearity. We find that the tunneling between the waveguides can be suppressed in a wide range of parameters. This suppression of tunneling is found to be related to the coherent destruction of tunneling in a linear medium, which in contrast occurs only at isolated parameter points. Therefore, we call this suppression nonlinear coherent destruction of tunneling. This localization phenomenon can be observed readily with current experimental capability; it may also be observable in a different physical system, the Bose-Einstein condensate.

• Received 10 May 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.76.051802