Control and manipulation of solitary structures in a nonlinear optical single feedback experiment

Abstract

We report on the addressing and control of the lateral positions of optical spatial solitary structures in a single feedback experiment with a saturable Kerr nonlinearity. Solitary structures allow a locally self-confined switching between a dark background and a bright state. This binary character can be of use to all-optically route information in optical networks. In general the lateral positions of solitary structures are strongly influenced by mutual interactions and system inhomogeneities. For potential photonic applications these interactions must be controllable. Therefore a noninvasive interferometric control method based on spatial Fourier filtering is studied in order to position solitary structures. Numerical and experimental results show that solitary structures can be aligned to periodic grids of different scale with hexagonal or square geometries.

Dissipative solitons

“…It was shown that well-defined lock-in distances between the spots can be connected to the formation of oscillatory tails [273,277]. Arrangements of DSs were not only found to be stationary, but propagating [277] and rotating [279]. However, drift was produced by introducing spatial gradients in the system, while rotation was found in the above mentioned systems by choosing D ¼ 2 n þ , with ( 1 in the feedback loop.…”

“…Different possible lock-in distances for oscillatorily decaying spots were detected for the same parameters, depending on the initial conditions [273,274,277]. Examples for this kind of molecule formation in the system shown in Figure 44 are depicted in Figure 45(d)-(f).…”

“…Even for the same rotation angle, several different arrangements were found to coexist ( Figure 46). It was shown that well-defined lock-in distances between the spots can be connected to the formation of oscillatory tails [273,277]. Arrangements of DSs were not only found to be stationary, but propagating [277] and rotating [279].…”

All-Optical Switching in Rubidium Vapor

“…In this Report, we describe an all-optical switch that combines the extreme sensitivity of instability-generated transverse optical patterns to tiny perturbations (12)(13)(14)(15)(16) with quantum interference methods (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). A transverse optical pattern is the spatial structure of the electromagnetic field in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction.…”

Observation of ultra-low-light-level all-optical switching

“…It has been shown that cavity solitons can be written and erased throughout the transverse aperture of the device, 27 and spatial-temporal instabilities can be controlled using weak, spatially filtered feedback. 26 In many of the experimental investigations, a semiconductor material 28 (liquid crystal device 29 ) is used as the nonlinear material for which the nonlinear coupling coefficient (response time) was low (slow), thus requiring a large switching energy density in comparison to the atomic experiments described in Sec. 1.1.…”