Abstract

There has been a great deal of recent experimental interest in the generation and study of spatial optical solitons. Such solitons have been observed in a range of materials, including CS₂, glass, and AlGaAs waveguides.¹ More recently attention has focused on the study of discrete spatial solitons in nonlinear waveguide arrays.²⁻⁴ The use of the halfbandgap nonlinearity of AlGaAs has many potential advantages over other nonlinear materials, including a large value of the nonlinear refractive coefficient, low loss (both linear and nonlinear), and a well-developed fabrication technology that allows a range of integrated optical devices to be engineered.⁵ In this paper we describe our recent experiments, which aim to use these properties of AlGaAs to observe discrete spatial solitons.

© 1998 Optical Society of America