One-dimensional spatial soliton dragging, trapping, and all-optical switching in AlGaAs waveguides

We report the dragging and mutual trapping of two initially overlapped, orthogonally polarized, onedimensional spatial solitons in an AlGaAs slab waveguide. Using this effect, we realized an all-optical switch that had an on/off switching contrast of ~2.5:1. The contrast of the switch increased to 4:1 when a soliton was used to drag a nonsoliton, weak beam.