Incoherent collisions between two-dimensional bright steady-state photorefractive spatial screening solitons

Shih, Ming-Feng; Segev, Mordechai

doi:10.1364/ol.21.001538

Cited by 145 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…One can take advantage of the finite response time and observe collisions of solitons that are mutually incoherent, i.e., their relative phase (therefore their interference) varies randomly in time much faster than the medium can respond, hence the two-beam-coupling interaction is totally eliminated (now ᭞I ᭞I 1 1 ᭞I 2 , leading to self-bending 16 of both solitons). Incoherent collisions between photorefractive solitons 17 were found to be subject to the optical guiding properties of the waveguides induced by each of the solitons, which in turn are controlled by the soliton existence curve. 18 Here we study coherent collisions between photorefractive solitons.…”

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Coherent collisions of photorefractive solitons

et al. 1997

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We present an experimental study of coherent collisions between one-dimensional bright photorefractive screening solitons in a bulk strontium barium niobate crystal. © 1997 Optical Society of America Photorefractive spatial solitons 1 -7 have become a subject of increased interest in the past few years. Several generic types of photorefractive self-trapping effects have been predicted and observed: quasisteady-state, 1 photovoltaic, 2 and screening solitons, Recently, the first observation of collisions between mutually incoherent 2D photorefractive solitons was reported. 16Here we report observations of coherent collisions between photorefractive solitons. The solitons exert repulsion or attraction forces upon each other, depending on the initial relative phase. For inphase collision, we find that the solitons fuse to a joint solution of the same or a broader width, which can be predicted from the soliton existence curve.Collisions between photorefractive solitons possess several unique features. First, when two optical beams intersect in a photorefractive medium, their interference gives rise to refractive-index gratings that couple the beams to each other by energy exchange and phase coupling. The strength of a two-beam-coupling interaction depends on the period the interference grating and, for periods much larger than the Debye length ͑L D ͒, the resultant space-charge field can be approximated as ͑k B T ͞q͒᭞I ͑͞I 1 I b 1 I d ͒, where I , I b , and I d are the intensities of the interfering beams, a uniform background illumination, and the dark irradiance, respectively, k B is Boltzman's constant, T is the temperature, and q is the electron charge. Second, the response time of photorefractive materials is inversely proportional to I 1 I b 1 I d . One can take advantage of the finite response time and observe collisions of solitons that are mutually incoherent, i.e., their relative phase (therefore their interference) varies randomly in time much faster than the medium can respond, hence the two-beam-coupling interaction is totally eliminated (now ᭞I ᭞I 1 1 ᭞I 2 , leading to self-bending 16 of both solitons). Incoherent collisions between photorefractive solitons 17 were found to be subject to the optical guiding properties of the waveguides induced by each of the solitons, which in turn are controlled by the soliton existence curve. 18Here we study coherent collisions between photorefractive solitons. Coherent collisions will be subject to (a) the waveguiding properties of the soliton-induced intersecting waveguides,19 which apply to all interacting solitons; (b) coherent attraction -repulsion forces, which apply to coherent soliton interactions only, and (c) two-beam-coupling processes, which apply to photorefractive spatial solitons only. For simplicity, we minimize (c) and study coherent collisions of photorefractive solitons with as little two-beam coupling as possible. Since for coherent collisions the interacting beams must be phase coherent to each other at all times, one cannot eliminate two-beam ...

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“…Since most of the voltage drop occurs in the regions outside the solitons, and since each soliton is much narrower than l, we can generate solitons a and b simultaneously, using the same voltage as for a single soliton ( of the same width as a and b). 17 We image the beams at the output face of the crystal onto a CCD camera with 61-mm resolution.…”

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Coherent collisions of photorefractive solitons

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“…Moreover, two self focused beams can interact [16][17][18][19][20], allowing to control the propagation direction of one beam with another beam, thus giving the basic mechanism for an all optical router.…”

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Experimental control of steady state photorefractive self-focusing in InP:Fe at infrared wavelengths

2011

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This paper reports an experimental study of the self-focusing process in iron doped indium phosphide at an 1.06 micron wavelength, identifying the influence of temperature, beam intensity and background illumination for two different iron dopings. We point out that the iron ionization ratio is at the origin of different qualitative behavior previously reported and we show that it is possible to reproduce the said behaviors in the same crystal by applying a uniform illumination, allowing their eventual control for dynamic wave-guiding.

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“…In particular, spatial optical solitons exhibit richness of characteristics not found for localized waves in other nonlinear media [5]. Indeed, much theoretical and experimental investigations have been performed for optical spatial solitons: elastic interaction of Kerr solitons [7,8,9,10], almost elastic and inelastic collisions of solitons in saturable media including fusion, fission, annihilation, and spiraling occurances [11] (see also [5]). …”

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Interaction of noncollinear spatial solitons in a nonlinear optical medium

Khomeriki

Tkeshelashvili

2004

J. Opt. Soc. Am. B

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The effects caused by nonresonant nonlinear interaction between noncollinear self-focusing beams are considered in 2D optical samples using multi-scale analysis. The analytical expression for the beams trajectories shift due to the mutual interaction is derived, and the range of parameters is given beyond which the mentioned consideration fails. We compare our results with the naive geometrical optics model. It is shown that these two approaches give the same results. This justifies the use of geometrical optics approach for description of elastic and almost-elastic collision processes both in Kerr and saturable nonlinear media. Despite the fact that there is a large diversity of nonlinear physical systems exhibiting soliton like excitations, due to universal properties of such creations, nonlinear localization dynamics can be described only within a few theoretical models [2]. This fact is of great importance. In particular, this allows one to study experimentally nonlinear phenomena in most convenient physical systems, while the direct experimental investigation of the particular system the subject of interest may be more difficult or even impossible. To date, such "model" experimental systems are nonlinear spin waves in ferromagnetic films [4] and spatial optical solitons [5]. However, magnetic envelope solitons can be observed only in (quasi) one dimensional samples and due to transverse instabilities they are unstable in higher space dimensions [4]. Thus recently suggested interaction effects [6] of noncollinearly propagating 1D envelope solitons in 2D magnetically ordered samples doubtfully will be easily realized experimentally. On the other hand nonlinear optical medium is most appropriate for the mentioned purpose (study 1D solitons noncollinear interaction in 2D samples). In particular, spatial optical solitons exhibit richness of characteristics not found for localized waves in other nonlinear media [5]. Indeed, much theoretical and experimental investigations have been performed for optical spatial solitons: elastic interaction of Kerr solitons [7,8,9, 10], almost elastic and inelastic collisions of solitons in saturable media including fusion, fission, annihilation, and spiraling occurances [11] (see also [5]).In the present paper we consider theoretically the problem of nonresonant interaction of Kerr spatial optical solitons. The method used here has been suggested for analytical description of interaction of noncollinearly propagating 1D envelope solitons of magnetization in 2D magnetically ordered samples [6]. This method itself is a generalization of well-known 1D multiple scale perturbation theory [12,13] for higher space dimensions. Since this approach allows us to study the case of interaction of two spatial solitons with different carrier wave frequencies, for the nonresonant interaction of solitons the results presented here are more general compared to ones obtained in [7], where the exact solutions are found but they concern only the case of spatial solitons interaction with the same car...

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Incoherent collisions between two-dimensional bright steady-state photorefractive spatial screening solitons

Cited by 145 publications

References 17 publications

Coherent collisions of photorefractive solitons

Coherent collisions of photorefractive solitons

Experimental control of steady state photorefractive self-focusing in InP:Fe at infrared wavelengths

Interaction of noncollinear spatial solitons in a nonlinear optical medium

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