Gray spatial solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media

We study gray solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media and show that they are stable and can form bound states. We reveal that gray soliton velocity depends on the nonlocality degree, and that it can be drastically reduced in highly nonlocal media. This is in contrast to the case of local media, where the maximal velocity is dictated solely by the asymptotic soliton amplitude

Approximate solutions and scaling transformations for quadratic solitons

We study quadratic solitons supported by two- and three-wave parametric interactions in chi-2 nonlinear media. Both planar and two-dimensional cases are considered. We obtain very accurate, 'almost exact', explicit analytical solutions, matching the actual bright soliton profiles, with the help of a specially-developed approach, based on analysis of the scaling properties. Additionally, we use these approximations to describe the linear tails of solitary waves which are related to the properties of the soliton bound states.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures; submitted for publicatio

Stable three-dimensional spinning optical solitons supported by competing quadratic and cubic nonlinearities

We show that the quadratic interaction of fundamental and second harmonics in a bulk dispersive medium, combined with self-defocusing cubic nonlinearity, give rise to completely localized spatiotemporal solitons (vortex tori) with vorticity s=1. There is no threshold necessary for the existence of these solitons. They are found to be stable against small perturbations if their energy exceeds a certain critical value, so that the stability domain occupies about 10% of the existence region of the solitons. We also demonstrate that the s=1 solitons are stable against very strong perturbations initially added to them. However, on the contrary to spatial vortex solitons in the same model, the spatiotemporal solitons with s=2 are never stable.Comment: latex text, 10 ps and 2 jpg figures; Physical Review E, in pres

Engineering of effective quadratic and cubic nonlinearities in two-period QPM gratings

Summary form only given. Quasi-phase-matching (QPM) by electric-field poling in ferro-electric materials, such as LiNbO/sub 3/, is promising due to the possibilities of engineering the photolithographic mask, and thus the QPM grating, without also generating a linear grating. A proper design of the longitudinal grating structure allows for distortion free temporal pulse compression, soliton shaping, broad-band phase matching, multiwavelength second-harmonic generation (SHG), and an enhanced cascaded phase shift. Transverse patterning can be used for beam-tailoring, broad-band SHG and soliton steering.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal optical solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media

We demonstrate the existence of stable three-dimensional spatiotemporal solitons (STSs) in media with a nonlocal cubic nonlinearity. Fundamental (nonspinning) STSs forming one-parameter families are stable if their propagation constant exceeds a certain critical value, that is inversely proportional to the range of nonlocality of nonlinear response. All spinning three-dimensional STSs are found to be unstable.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, accepted to PRE, Rapid Communication

Stable spatiotemporal solitons in Bessel optical lattices

We investigate the existence and stability of three-dimensional (3D) solitons supported by cylindrical Bessel lattices (BLs) in self-focusing media. If the lattice strength exceeds a threshold value, we show numerically, and using the variational approximation, that the solitons are stable within one or two intervals of values of their norm. In the latter case, the Hamiltonian-vs.-norm diagram has a "swallowtail" shape, with three cuspidal points. The model applies to Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and to optical media with saturable nonlinearity, suggesting new ways of making stable 3D BEC solitons and "light bullets" of an arbitrary size.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett., in pres

Soliton excitation in waveguide arrays with an effective intermediate dimensionality

We reveal and observe experimentally significant modifications undertaken by discrete solitons in waveguide lattices upon the continuous transformation of the lattice structure from one-dimensional to two-dimensional. Light evolution and soliton excitation in arrays with a gradually increasing number of rows are investigated, yielding solitons with an effective reduced dimensionality residing at the edge and in the bulk of the lattice.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letter

Polarization conversion spectroscopy of hybrid modes

Enhanced polarization conversion in reflection for the Otto and Kretschmann configurations is introduced as a new method for hybrid-mode spectroscopy. Polarization conversion in reflection appears when hybrid-modes are excited in a guiding structure composed of at least one anisotropic media. In contrast to a dark dip, in this case modes are associated to a peak in the converted reflectance spectrum, increasing the detection sensitivity and avoiding confusion with reflection dips associated with other processes as can be transmission.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Two-dimensional solitons at interfaces between binary superlattices and homogeneous lattices

We report on the experimental observation of two-dimensional surface solitons residing at the interface between a homogeneous square lattice and a superlattice that consists of alternating "deep" and "shallow" waveguides. By exciting single waveguides in the first row of the superlattice, we show that solitons centered on deep sites require much lower powers than their respective counterparts centered on shallow sites. Despite the fact that the average refractive index of the superlattice waveguides is equal to the refractive index of the homogeneous lattice, the interface results in clearly asymmetric output patterns.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Physical Review

Two-color nonlinear localized photonic modes

We analyze second-harmonic generation (SHG) at a thin effectively quadratic nonlinear interface between two linear optical media. We predict multistability of SHG for both plane and localized waves, and also describe two-color localized photonic modes composed of a fundamental wave and its second harmonic coupled together by parametric interaction at the interface.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures (updated references