We address the properties of surface solitons supported by optical lattices imprinted in photorefractive media with asymmetric diffusion nonlinearity. Such solitons exist only in finite gaps of lattice spectrum. In contrast to latticeless geometries, where surface waves exist only when nonlinearity deflects light towards the material surface, the surface lattice solitons exist in settings where diffusion would cause beam bending against the surface.
We address the properties of optical solitons in thermal nonlinear media with a local refractive index defect that is capable to trap solitons launched even close to the sample boundary despite the boundary-mediated forces that tend to deflect all beams toward the center of the sample. We show that while such forces become more pronounced with increasing the input beam power the defect can trap only light below a critical power above which solitons are ejected. The dynamics of soliton ejection and the subsequent propagation may be controlled.
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.
We predict the existence of surface dark solitons at the interface between a self-defocusing nonlocal nonlinear medium and a linear medium. The fundamental and higher-order surface dark solitons can exist when the linear refractive index of the self-defocusing media is much larger than that of the linear media. The fundamental solitons are stable and the stabilities of higher-order solitons depend on both nonlocality degree and propagation constant.
The properties of optical solitons in periodic nonlinear media are reviewed. The emphasis is on solitons in periodically refractive media (Bragg gratings) incorporating a periodic set of thin layers of two-level systems resonantly interacting with the field. Such media support a variety of bright and dark `gap solitons' propagating in the band gaps of the Bragg gratings, as well as their multi - dimensional analogs (light bullets). These novel gap solitons differ substantially from their counterparts in periodic media with either cubic or quadratic off-resonant nonlinearities.
We address the existence and properties of solitons in layered thermal media made of alternating focusing and defocusing layers. Such structures support robust bright solitons even if the averaged nonlinearity is defocusing. We show that non-oscillating solitons may form in any of the focusing domains, even in those located close to the sample edge, in contrast to uniform thermal media where light beams always oscillate when not launched exactly on the sample center. Stable multipole solitons may include more than four spots in layered media.
We address the existence and properties of optical solitons excited in thermal nonlinear media with a transverse refractive index gradient. We show that in such a geometry one can generate controllable switching from surface soliton propagating near the sample edges to bulk solitons. Beam steering associated to the different soliton output locations can be achieved by varying the input light intensity.
We present the experimental observation of scalar multi-pole solitons in highly nonlocal nonlinear media, including dipole-, tri-pole, quadru-pole, and necklace-type solitons, organized as arrays of out-of-phase bright spots. These complex solitons are meta-stable, but with a large parameters range where the instability is weak, enabling their experimental observation.
We introduce a mechanism to stabilize spatiotemporal solitons in Kerr nonlinear media, based on the dispersion of linear coupling between the field components forming the soliton states. Specifically, we consider solitons in a two-core guiding structure with inter-core coupling dispersion (CD). We show that CD profoundly affects properties of the solitons, causing the complete stabilization of the otherwise highly unstable spatiotemporal solitons in Kerr media with focusing nonlinearity. We also find that the presence of CD stimulates the formation of bound states, which however are unstable.
We analyze the salient features of vortex-ring solitons supported by cylindrically symmetric media with nonlocal thermal nonlinearity. We discover the existence of a maximum allowed topological charge for such vortex solitons to be stable on propagation: Only vortex-ring solitons with topological charge m<=2 are found to be stable. This remarkable result holds independently of the radius of the sample.
"Light bullets" are multi-dimensional solitons which are localized in both space and time. We show that such solitons exist in two- and three-dimensional self-induced-transparency media and that they are fully stable. Our approximate analytical calculation, backed and verified by direct numerical simulations, yields the multi-dimensional generalization of the one-dimensional Sine-Gordon soliton.
We reveal that lattice interfaces imprinted in nonlocal nonlinear media support surface solitons that do not exist in other similar settings, including interfaces of local and nonlocal uniform materials. We show the impact of nonlocality on the domains of existence and stability of the surface solitons, focusing on new types of dipole solitons residing partially inside the optical lattice. We find that such solitons feature strongly asymmetric shapes and that they are stable in large parts of their existence domain.
We show that multipole solitons can be made stable via vectorial coupling in bulk nonlocal nonlinear media. Such vector solitons are composed of mutually incoherent nodeless and multipole components jointly inducing a nonlinear refractive index profile. We found that stabilization of the otherwise highly unstable multipoles occurs below a maximum energy flow. Such threshold is determined by the nonlocality degree.
We address the existence and properties of multipole solitons localized at a thermally insulating interface between uniform or layered thermal media and a linear dielectric. We find that in the case of uniform media, only surface multipoles with less than three poles can be stable. In contrast, we reveal that periodic alternation of the thermo-optic coefficient in layered thermal media makes possible the stabilization of higher order multipoles.
We address the stabilization of dipole solitons in nonlocal nonlinear materials by two different approaches. First, we study the properties of such solitons in thermal nonlinear media, where the refractive index landscapes induced by laser beams strongly depend on the boundary conditions and on the sample geometry. We show how the sample geometry impacts the stability of higher-order solitons in thermal nonlinear media and reveal that dipole solitons can be made dynami-cally stable in rectangular geometries in contrast to their counterparts in thermal samples with square cross-section. Second,…
We address the evolution of higher-order excited states, such as vortex and multi-hump solitons, in nonlocal media with synthetic, competing focusing and defocusing nonlinearities with different nonlocal transverse scales. We reveal that introduction of suitable competing effects makes possible the stabilization of vortex solitons with topological charge m>2, as well as one-dimensional multi-hump solitons with number of humps p>4, all of which are highly unstable in natural nonlocal materials with focusing nonlinearities.
The generation of high-intensity optical fields from harmonic-wave photons, interacting via a cross-phase modulation with dark solitons both propagating in a Kerr nonlinear medium, is examined. The focus is on a pump consisting of time-entangled dark-soliton patterns, forming a periodic waveguide along the path of the harmonic-wave probe. It is shown that an increase of the strength of cross-phase modulation respective to the self-phase modulation, favors soliton-mode proliferation in the bound-state spectrum of the trapped harmonic-wave probe. The induced soliton modes, which display the stru…
We investigate the impact of nonlocality, owing to diffusive behavior, on transverse instabilities of a dark stripe propagating in a defocusing cubic medium. The nonlocal response turns out to have a strongly stabilizing effect both in the case of a single soliton input and in the regime where dispersive shock waves develop "multisoliton regime". Such conclusions are supported by the linear stability analysis and numerical simulation of the propagation.
The effect of finite boundaries in the propagation of spatial nonlocal solitons in media with cylindrical symmetry is analyzed. Using Ehrenfest's theorem together with the Green's function of the nonlinear refractive index equation, we derive an analytical expression for the force exerted on the soliton by the boundaries, verifying its validity by full numerical propagation. We show that the dynamics of the soliton are determined not only by the degree of nonlocality, but also by the boundary conditions for the refractive index. In particular, we report that a supercritical pitchfork bifurcati…
We analyze the existence, stability, and mobility of gap solitons (GSs) in a periodic photonic structure built into a nonlocal self-defocusing medium. Counter-intuitively, the GSs are supported even by a highly nonlocal nonlinearity, which makes the system quasi-linear. Unlike local models, the variational approximation (VA) predicts the GSs in a good agreement with numerical findings, due to the suppression of undulating tails of the solitons.
We consider the impact of anisotropic nonlocality on the arrest of the collapse and stabilization of dipole-mode (DM) solitons in two-dimensional (2D) models of optical media with the diffusive nonlinearity. The nonlocal nonlinearity is made anisotropic through elliptic diffusivity. The medium becomes semi-local in the limit case of 1D diffusivity. Families of fundamental and DM solitons are found by means of the variational approximation (VA) and in a numerical form. We demonstrate that the collapse of 2D beams is arrested even in the semi-local system. The anisotropic nonlocality readily sta…
Conditions for stable propagation of one-dimensional bright spatial solitons in media exhibiting optical nonlinearities up to the seventh-order are investigated. The results show well-defined stability regions even when all the nonlinear terms are focusing. Conditions for onset of the supercritical collapse of the optical beam are identified too. A variational approximation is used to predict dependence of the soliton propagation constant on the norm, and respective stability regions are identified using the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion. Analytical results obtained by means of the variational …
We investigate the breathing of optical spatial solitons in highly nonlocal media. Generalizing the Ehrenfest theorem, we demonstrate that oscillations in beam width obey a fourth-order ordinary differential equation. Moreover, in actual highly nonlocal materials, the original accessible soliton model by Snyder and Mitchell [Science \textbf{276}, 1538 (1997)] cannot accurately describe the dynamics of self-confined beams as the transverse size oscillations have a period which not only depends on power but also on the initial width. Modeling the nonlinear response by a Poisson equation driven b…
We show the existence of stable two- and three-dimensional vortex solitons carrying multiple, spatially separated, single-charge topological dislocations nested around a vortex-ring core. Such new nonlinear states are supported by elliptical gain landscapes in focusing nonlinear media with two-photon absorption. The separation between the phase dislocations is dictated mostly by the geometry of gain landscape and it only slightly changes upon variation of the gain or absorption strength.
We consider soliton formation in thermal nonlinear media bounded by rectangular cross-sections and uncover a new class of nonlinear stationary topological state. Specifically, we find that stationary higher-order vortex states in standard shapes do not exist, but rather they take the form of multiple, spatially separated single-charge singularities nested in an elliptical beam. Double-charge states are found to be remarkably robust despite their shape asymmetry and the phase-singularity splitting. States with higher topological charges are found to be unstable.
The problem of the stability of solitons in second-harmonic-generating media with normal group-velocity dispersion (GVD) in the second-harmonic (SH) field, which is generic to available chi^(2) materials, is revisited. Using an iterative numerical scheme to construct stationary soliton solutions, and direct simulations to test their stability, we identify a full soliton-stability range in the space of the system's parameters, including the coefficient of the group-velocity-mismatch (GVM). The soliton stability is limited by an abrupt onset of growth of tails in the SH component, the relevant s…
We investigate numerically interactions between two in-phase or out-of-phase Airy beams and nonlinear accelerating beams in Kerr and saturable nonlinear media in one transverse dimension. We discuss different cases in which the beams with different intensities are launched into the medium, but accelerate in opposite directions. Since both the Airy beams and nonlinear accelerating beams possess infinite oscillating tails, we discuss interactions between truncated beams, with finite energies. During interactions we see solitons and soliton pairs generated that are not accelerating. In general, t…
The existence of a novel type of solitons in periodic Kerr media constructed as superposition of noninteracting gap-solitons of different kinds (bright, dark and periodic) is first demonstrated. The periodic modulation of the nonlinearity is used to suppress the cross phase modulation between components to allow the superimposed beam to propagate for long distances.
We consider one- and two-dimensional (1D and 2D) optical or matter-wave media with a maximum of the local self-repulsion strength at the center, and a minimum at periphery. If the central area is broad enough, it supports ground states in the form of flat-floor \textquotedblleft bubbles", and topological excitations, in the form of dark solitons in 1D and vortices with winding number $m$ in 2D. Unlike bright solitons, delocalized bubbles and dark modes were not previously considered in this setting. The ground and excited states are accurately approximated by the Thomas-Fermi expressions. The …
We address the dynamics of two-dimensional (2D) truncated Airy waves and three-component solitons in the system of two fundamental-frequency and second-harmonic fields, coupled by quadratic (chi^(2)) terms. The system models second-harmonic-generating optical media and atomic-molecular mixtures in Bose-Einstein condensates. In addition to stable solitons, the system maintains truncated-Airy-waves states in either one of the fundamental-frequency components, represented by exact solutions, which are stable, unlike the Airy waves in the degenerate (two-component) chi^(2) system. It is also possi…
Shortcuts to adiabaticity for rapid soliton compression in nonlocal media
Shanghai University（上海大学）；University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU（巴斯克大学）；Quantum Advanced Research Center (QuARC), CSIC（CSIC量子先进研究中心）；Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM), CSIC（CSIC马德里材料科学研究所）
We introduce vector soliton complexes in nonlocal Kerr-type nonlinear media. We discover that under proper conditions the combination of nonlocality and vectorial coupling has a remarkable stabilizing action on multi-humped solitons. In particular, we find that stable bound states featuring several field oscillations in each soliton component do exist. This affords stabilization of vector soliton trains incorporating large number of humps, a class of structures known to self-destroy via strong instabilities in scalar settings.
We construct families of ordinary and gap solitons (GSs), including solitary vortices, in the two-dimensional (2D) system based on the nonlinear-SchrÄodinger/Gross-Pitaevskii equation with the 2D or quasi-1D (Q1D) periodic linear potential, combined with the periodic modulation of the cubic nonlinearity (also in the 2D or Q1D form), which is, generally, incommensurate with the linear potential, thus forming a \nonlinear quasicrystal". Stable vortices are built as complexes of four peaks with the separation between them equal to the double period of the linear potential. The system may be reali…
It is studied the bright spatial solitons in nonlocal defocusing Kerr media with parity-time (PT) symmetric potentials. We find that these solitons can exist and be stable over a different range of potential parameters. The influence of the degree of nonlocality on the solitons and the transverse energy flow within the stable solitons are also examined.
We find that a surface soliton in nonlocal nonlinear media can be regarded as a half of a bulk soliton with an antisymmetric amplitude distribution. The analytical solutions for the surface solitons and breathers in strongly nonlocal media are obtained, and the critical power and breather period are gotten analytically and confirmed by numerical simulations. In addition, the oscillating propagation of nonlocal surface solitons launched away from the stationary position is considered as the interaction between the soliton and its out-of-phase image beam. Its trajectory and oscillating period ob…
We demonstrate the existence of fundamental and dipole interface solitons in one-dimensional thermal nonlinear media with a step in linear refractive index. Fundamental interface solitons are found to be always stable and the stability of dipole interface solitons depends on the difference in linear refractive index. The mass center of interface solitons always locates in the side with higher index. Two intensity peaks of dipole interface solitons are unequal except some specific conditions, which is different from their counterparts in uniform thermal media.
We demonstrate that spatially inhomogeneous defocusing nonlinear landscapes with the nonlinearity coefficient growing toward the periphery as [1+abs(r)]**a support one- and two-dimensional fundamental and higher-order bright solitons, as well as vortex solitons, with algebraically decaying tails. The energy flow of the solitons converges as long as nonlinearity growth rate exceeds the dimensionality, i.e., a>D. Fundamental solitons are always stable, while multipoles and vortices are stable if the nonlinearity growth rate is large enough.
We investigate the propagation of the spatial soliton in cylindrical strongly nonlocal media by a novel method of image beam of light. The effect of the boundary on the soliton acting as the dynamic force for the soliton steering is equivalent to the force between the soliton beam and the image beam. The trajectory of the soliton is analytically studied which is in good agreement with the experimental results.
We analyze the transverse instabilities of spatial bright solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media, both analytically and numerically. We demonstrate that the nonlocal nonlinear response leads to a dramatic suppression of the transverse instability of the soliton stripes, and we derive the asymptotic expressions for the instability growth rate in both short- and long-wave approximations.
Ring dark and anti-dark solitons in nonlocal media are found. These structures have, respectively, the form of annular dips or humps on top of a stable continuous-wave background, and exist in a weak or strong nonlocality regime, defined by the sign of a characteristic parameter. It is demonstrated analytically that these solitons satisfy an effective cylindrical Kadomtsev-Petviashvilli (aka Johnson's) equation and, as such, can be written explicitly in closed form. Numerical simulations show that they propagate undistorted and undergo quasi-elastic collisions, attesting to their stability pro…
We report results for solitons in models of waveguides with focusing or defocusing saturable nonlinearity and a parity-time(PT )-symmetric complex-valued external potential of the Scarf-II type. The model applies to the nonlinear wave propagation in graded-index optical waveguides with balanced gain and loss. We find both fundamental and multipole solitons for both focusing and defocusing signs of the saturable nonlinearity in such PT -symmetric waveguides. The dependence of the propagation constant on the soliton's power is presented for different strengths of the nonlinearity saturation, S. …
We address the existence and properties of solitons in thermal media with periodic modulation of linear refractive index. Many kinds of solitons in such optical lattices, including symmetric and antisymmetric lattices, are found under different conditions. We study the influence of the refractive index difference between two different layers on solitons. It is also found that there do not exist cutoff value of propagation constant and soliton power for shifted lattice solitons. In addition, the solitons launched away from their stationary position may propagate without oscillation when the con…
It is shown that three or more dark/gray solitons can form bound states in nonlocal media. More over dark/gray solitons can form bound states in several balance distances. Numerical simulations indicate that some of such bound states are unstable and will decay into a group of fundamental solitons, while others may be stable. There exist degenerate bound states with the same velocity, Hamiltonian, particle numbers and momentum but decaying in different ways and having different lifetimes.
Analytical solutions for (1+1)D surface fundamental solitons in thermal nonlinear media are obtained. The stationary position and the critical power of surface solitons are obtained using this analytical solutions. The analytical solutions are verified by numerical simulations. The solutions for surface breathers and their breathing period, and solutions for surface dipole and tripole solitons are also given.
By using a powerful reductive perturbation technique, or a multiscale analysis, a generic Kadomtsev-Petviashvili evolution equation governing the propagation of femtosecond spatiotemporal optical solitons in quadratic nonlinear media beyond the slowly varying envelope approximation is put forward. Direct numerical simulations show the formation, from adequately chosen few-cycle input pulses, of both stable line solitons (in the case of a quadratic medium with normal dispersion) and of stable lumps (for a quadratic medium with anomalous dispersion). Besides, a typical example of the decay of th…
We study the formation of dark-bright vector soliton pairs in nonlocal Kerr-type nonlinear medium. We show, by analytical analysis and direct numerical calculation, that in addition to stabilize vector soliton pairs nonlocal nonlinearity also helps to reduce the threshold power for forming a guided bright soliton. With help of the nonlocality, it is expected that the observation of dark-bright vector soliton pairs in experiments becomes more workable.
We address the existence of multipole interface solitons in one-dimensional thermal nonlinear media with a step in the linear refractive index at the sample center. It is found that there exist two types of solutions for tripole and quadrupole interface solitons. The two types of interface solitons have different profiles, beam widths, mass centers, and stability regions. For a given propagation constant, only one type of interface soliton is proved to be stable, while the other type can also survive over a long distance. In addition, three types of solutions for fifth-order interface solitons…
Intense light propagating in a nonlinear medium can generate an ensemble of interacting filaments of light, or spatial solitons. Using nematic liquid crystals, we demonstrate that they undergo a collective behavior typical of complex systems, including the formation of clusters and sound-like vibrations, as well as the reduction of the configurational entropy, controlled by the degree of nonlocality of the medium.
Thermo-optical effects cause a bifocusing of incoming beams in optical media, due to the birefringence created by a thermal lens that can resolve the incoming beams into two-component signals of different polarizations. We propose a non-perturbative theoretical description of the process of formation of double-pulse solitons in Kerr optical media with a thermally-induced birefringence, based on solving simultaneously the heat equation and the propagation equation for a beam in a one-dimensional medium with uniform heat flux load. By means of a non-isospectral Inverse Scattering Transform assum…
In a recent paper [A. Alberucci, C. Jisha, N. Smyth, and G. Assanto, Phys. Rev. A 91, 013841 (2015)], Alberucci et al. have studied the propagation of bright spatial solitary waves in highly nonlocal media. We find that the main results in that and related papers, concerning soliton shape and dynamics, based on the accessible soliton (AS) approximation, are incorrect; the correct results have already been published by others. These and other inconsistencies in the paper follow from the problems in applying the AS approximation in earlier papers by the group that propagated to the later papers.…
In this paper we investigate the properties of self induced transparency (SIT) solitons, propagating in a $Λ$-type medium. It was found that the interaction between SIT solitons can lead to trapping with their phase preserved in the ground state coherence of the medium. These phases can be altered in a systematic way by the application of appropriate light fields, such as additional SIT solitons. Furthermore, multiple independent SIT solitons can be made to propagate as bi-solitons through their mutual interaction with a separate light field. Finally, we demonstrate that control of the SIT sol…
Selective excitation of a diffusive system's transmission eigenchannels enables manipulation of its internal energy distribution. The fluctuations and correlations of the eigenchannels' spatial profiles, however, remain unexplored so far. Here we show that the depth profiles of high-transmission eigenchannels exhibit low realization-to-realization fluctuations. Furthermore, our experimental and numerical studies reveal the existence of inter-channel correlations, which are significant for low-transmission eigenchannels. Because high-transmission eigenchannels are robust and independent from ot…
We report exact bright and dark soliton solution to the nonlinear evolution equation derived by Moses and Wise [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 073903, (2006)] for cascaded quadratic media beyond the slowly varying envelope approximations. The integrability aspects of the model are addressed. The traveling wave hypothesis as well as the ansatz method is employed to obtain an exact 1-soliton solution. Both bright and dark soliton solutions are obtained. The corresponding constraint conditions are obtained in order for the soliton solutions to exist.
While the absorption of light is ubiquitous in nature and in applications, the question remains how absorption modifies the transmission channels in random media. We present a numerical study on the effects of optical absorption on the maximal transmission and minimal reflection channels in a two-dimensional disordered waveguide. In the weak absorption regime, where the system length is less than the diffusive absorption length, the maximal transmission channel is dominated by diffusive transport and it is equivalent to the minimal reflection channel. Its frequency bandwidth is determined by t…
We investigate Airy-soliton interactions in self-defocusing media with PT potentials in one transverse dimension. We discuss different potentials in which the interacting beams with different phases are launched into the media at different separation distances. During interactions, there exist a primary collision region and a relaxation region accompanied by continuous interaction with the dispersed Airy tail. In the relaxation region, the beams exist soliton-like and breathers-like propagation. The beam width and mean power are influenced by initial separation, phase shift and modulation dept…
