Abstract

Arrays of photorefractive solitons and their interaction were demonstrated experimentally and theoretically in a number of works, e. g. [1,2], However, the threshold parameters of the distance between incident coherent laser beams, which strongly influence the soliton interaction, were not considered. In this work we present the results of experimental and theoretical investigations of a coherent 2D optical soliton interaction in a SBN crystal. The input beams with a waist (FWHM) of about 30 μm were launched onto the front surface of the crystal (5×5×20 mn). The propagation length was 20 mn. To enhance the influence of the electro-optical effect the light was polarized along the optical c-axis (perpendicularly to the propagation direction). A spatial light modulator (SLM) was used to provide different positions of the input beams. Because of the technical parameters of the used SLM the distance between the centers of the beams can be tuned only with a predetermined step of ≈40 μm which corresponds to ≈1.3 FWHM.

© 2007 IEEE