SELF-DEFLECTION OF STEADY-STATE BRIGHT SPATIAL SOLITONS IN BIASED PHOTOREFRACTIVE CRYSTALS

The self-bending process of steady-state bright spatial solitons in bi ased photorefractive media is investigated by taking into account diff usion effects. By integrating numerically the nonlinear propagation eq uation, it is found that the soliton beam evolution is approximately a diabatic. The self-deflection process is further studied using perturb ation analysis, which predicts that the center of the optical beam mov es on a parabolic trajectory and, moreover, that the central spatial f requency component shifts linearly with the propagation distance. Rele vant examples are provided.