LASER-BEAM SELF-SPLITTING INTO SOLITONS BY OPTICAL KERR NONLINEARITY

The presented experiment consists in the high intensity picosecond exc itation of a bulk Kerr medium by sinusoidal interference patterns of h igh spatial frequency. These patterns generate light-induced Bragg ref ractive index gratings exhibiting nearly periodic self-organization of the well-known catastrophic break-up of the laser beam. Thus, self-fo cusing leads to self-trapped structures, whose features satisfactorily agree with shapes and intensities of a set of fundamental soliton bea ms.