Guiding and dividing waves with photorefractive solitons

In this paper we show the guidance of a HeNe probe beam in photorefractive (2+1)D-solitons created by a beam of a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser in SB N. In the first part the development of a single soliton is shown in a time -resolved manner while the guided probe beam is found to follow exactly the movement of the soliton and even copies its shape. In the second part the guidance of a probe beam in interacting solitons is performed. When two (21)D-solitons propagate simultaneously different interaction scenarios can b e observed, including the mutual exchange of energy. Using this effect, a g uided probe beam can be divided effectively in two parts. Thus we present t o our knowledge the first realization of a 1-to-2 waveguide divider using ( 2+1)D-solitons. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.