OBSERVATION OF BRIGHT SPATIAL PHOTOREFRACTIVE SOLITONS IN A PLANAR STRONTIUM BARIUM NIOBATE WAVE-GUIDE

We have obtained stationary bright spatial solitons in a planar photor efractive strontium barium niobate waveguide for visible light ranging from 514.5 to 780 nm. Even for larger wavelengths (lambda = 1047 nm) strong self-focusing of the beam was observed; however, input power ha d to be some orders of magnitude higher than for visible light for sel f-focusing to occur. Furthermore, we found transient self-trapping of red light (lambda = 632.8 nm) that corresponds to the formation of bri ght quasi-steady-state solitons. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.