Optical Spatial Solitons and Their Interactions: Universality and Diversity

Spatial solitons, beams that do not spread owing to diffraction when they propagate, have been demonstrated to exist by virtue of a variety of nonlinear self-trapping mechanisms. Despite the diversity of these mechanisms, many of the features of soliton interactions and collisions are universal. Spa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 1999-11, Vol.286 (5444), p.1518-1523
Main Authors: Stegeman, George I., Segev, Mordechai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electrons
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Light beams
Light refraction
Mathematical vectors
Nonlinear optics
Nonlinearity
Optical solitons
nonlinear guided waves
Optics
Physics
Reviews
Solitons
Spatial light modulators
Trajectories
Wave diffraction
Waveguides
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Summary:Spatial solitons, beams that do not spread owing to diffraction when they propagate, have been demonstrated to exist by virtue of a variety of nonlinear self-trapping mechanisms. Despite the diversity of these mechanisms, many of the features of soliton interactions and collisions are universal. Spatial solitons exhibit a richness of phenomena not found with temporal solitons in fibers, including effects such as fusion, fission, annihilation, and stable orbiting in three dimensions. Here the current state of knowledge on spatial soliton interactions is reviewed.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.286.5444.1518