Cavity Soliton Laser based on mutually coupled semiconductor microresonators

We report on experimental observation of localized structures in two mutually coupled broad-areahttp://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/images/calendar.gif semiconductor resonators. These structures coexist with a dark homogeneous background and they have the same properties as cavity solitons without requiring the presence of a driving beam into the system. They can be switched individually on and off by means of a local addressing beam

Mid-Band Dissipative Spatial Solitons

We show dissipative spatial solitons in nonlinear optical micro-resonators in which the refractive index is laterally modulated. In addition to "normal" and "staggered" dissipative solitons, similar to those in spatially modulated conservative systems, a narrow "mid-band" soliton is shown, having no counterparts in conservative systems

Cavity Light Bullets: 3D Localized Structures in a Nonlinear Optical Resonator

We consider the paraxial model for a nonlinear resonator with a saturable absorber beyond the mean-field limit and develop a method to study the modulational instabilities leading to pattern formation in all three spatial dimensions. For achievable parametric domains we observe total radiation confinement and the formation of 3D localised bright structures. At difference from freely propagating light bullets, here the self-organization proceeds from the resonator feedback, combined with diffraction and nonlinearity. Such "cavity" light bullets can be independently excited and erased by appropriate pulses, and once created, they endlessly travel the cavity roundtrip. Also, the pulses can shift in the transverse direction, following external field gradients.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, simulations files available at http://www.ba.infn.it/~maggipin/PRLmovies.htm, submitted to Physical Review Letters on 24 March 200

Dissipative solitons which cannot be trapped

In this paper we study the behavior of dissipative solitons in systems with high order nonlinear dissipation and show how they cannot survive under the effect of trapping potentials both of rigid wall type or asymptotically increasing ones. This provides an striking example of a soliton which cannot be trapped and only survives to the action of a weak potential

Nonlinear switching and solitons in PT-symmetric photonic systems

One of the challenges of the modern photonics is to develop all-optical devices enabling increased speed and energy efficiency for transmitting and processing information on an optical chip. It is believed that the recently suggested Parity-Time (PT) symmetric photonic systems with alternating regions of gain and loss can bring novel functionalities. In such systems, losses are as important as gain and, depending on the structural parameters, gain compensates losses. Generally, PT systems demonstrate nontrivial non-conservative wave interactions and phase transitions, which can be employed for signal filtering and switching, opening new prospects for active control of light. In this review, we discuss a broad range of problems involving nonlinear PT-symmetric photonic systems with an intensity-dependent refractive index. Nonlinearity in such PT symmetric systems provides a basis for many effects such as the formation of localized modes, nonlinearly-induced PT-symmetry breaking, and all-optical switching. Nonlinear PT-symmetric systems can serve as powerful building blocks for the development of novel photonic devices targeting an active light control.Comment: 33 pages, 33 figure