Report submitted as a part of the PhD Qualifying Research Preparation Criterion for the year 2013

Optical fibers offer a number of optical nonlinear effects, which come with their associated utilities and drawbacks. These nonlinearities are essential in order to implement the all-optical functionalities, which solely require tradeoff between the excellences and the adversities they offer, in order to utilize their potential to the fullest. In this condensed report, a concise and comprehensive study of the fiber nonlinearities and their consequences has been demonstrated. Along with the fundamentals, a special effort has been made to point out the impacts of different fiber parameters related to both the material and the fiber geometry and the interplay between the two. The report also refers to numerous recent applications that exploited these nonlinearities.