INCOHERENT COLLISIONS BETWEEN 2-DIMENSIONAL BRIGHT STEADY-STATE PHOTOREFRACTIVE SPATIAL SCREENING SOLITONS

We report the observation of incoherent collisions between two-dimensi onal bright photorefractive screening solitons. The solitons remain in tact and do not exchange energy whenever the collision angle exceeds t he critical angle for guidance in the waveguide that each soliton indu ces, which is, in turn, fully controlled by the soliton parameters. Wh en the collision angle is much smaller than the critical angle the sol itons fuse to form a single beam. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America