Soliton formation by interacting Airy beams

Diebel F., Timotijević D. V., Jović Savić D. M., Denz C.

Abstract

In this contribution, we experimentally demonstrate a new type of spatial solitons arising from the mutual interaction of multiple two-dimensional Airy beams in a photorefractive nonlinear refractive index medium. Thereby, we combine two important concepts of optics: the fascinating accelerated Airy beams and nonlinear beam localization such as spatial soliton formation. We investigate the generation of this novel type of solitons and soliton pairs with respect to the number and phase relation of the superimposed Airy beams and support all experiments with comprehensive numerical simulations. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.