Abstract

Novel features of spatial soliton dynamics in periodic media have attracted attention of scientific community in the last few years. Stable solitons have been proven to exist in different periodic media like photorefractive media [1], optical lattices and photonic crystal fibers with a Kerr self-focusing nonlinearity [2,3]- On the other hand, two-dimensional regular arrays of solitons have been also found in photorefractive homogeneous media [4]. Individual solitons here can be considered as weakly interacting particles spatially distributed with a periodicity that resembles that of an electronic crystal. However, electrons in electronic crystals present stronger localization at lattice sites due to the existence of the binding ionic potential. We expect then that solitons in periodic dielectric media can imitate electronic behavior in a crystalline solid in a more realistic way.

© 2007 IEEE