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Optical spatial solitons: historical overview and recent advances.
Zhigang Chen1, Mordechai Segev, Demetrios N Christodoulides
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA.
Summary
Optical spatial solitons, self-trapped light waves, have advanced nonlinear optics and photonics. This review explores diverse nonlinearities, soliton families, and recent developments in spatial soliton research.
Area of Science:
- Nonlinear Optics and Photonics
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Fluid Mechanics
Background:
- Solitons, or nonlinear self-trapped wavepackets, are fundamental in diverse physics fields.
- Nonlinear optics has significantly advanced soliton research, particularly with optical spatial solitons.
- Spatial solitons offer greater dimensionality and diverse nonlinearities compared to temporal solitons.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide a comprehensive overview of optical spatial solitons.
- To discuss various types of nonlinearities supporting self-trapped waves.
- To highlight recent advancements and diverse phenomena in spatial soliton research.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on optical spatial solitons.
- Analysis of self-trapped waves supported by various nonlinearities.
- Discussion of different spatial soliton families and emerging concepts.
Main Results:
- Optical spatial solitons are driven by diverse nonlinearities beyond the Kerr effect.
- New phenomena like incoherent and discrete solitons have emerged.
- Recent developments include 3D light bullets and solitons in soft matter and PT-symmetric systems.
Conclusions:
- Optical spatial solitons have broad implications across nonlinear science.
- The study of spatial solitons continues to expand fundamental understanding.
- Diverse nonlinearities enable novel soliton behaviors and applications.
