Abstract

Optical waveguides provide an efficient way of confining and propagating light with the additional advantage of allowing the observation of nonlinear effects at relatively low input powers.¹ However, to create a steerable reconfigurable waveguide in a bulk medium, one may employ a different concept, based on the propagation of self-guided beams or spatial soiitons.² We link together these two concepts for the first time and consider the problem of the generation of spatial solitons by using nonlinear guided modes of a nonlinear slab waveguide.

© 1998 Optical Society of America