Abstract

As it is well known, solitary self-confined beams in two transverse dimensions (2D+1) are unstable in purely Kerr media; nonetheless, material s exhibiting electronic nonlinearities are relevant for applications in ultrafast photonics. Recently, nonlinear absorption has been investigated as a mechanism able to prevent catastrophic collapse and allow the formation of stable (2D+1) solitons [1]. In this Communication we demonstrate for the first time stable self-confined propagation with ps near-infrared (NIR) pulses and over several Rayleigh lengths. We show that multiphoton absorption saturates the self-focusing response in a novel glass of the ternary system Nb₂ O₅ GeO₂ PbO (NPG) exhibiting a high refractive index (2-2.1) in the NIR and an energy gap of 3.52eV. NPG belongto the family of heavy metal oxides, widely studied for its fast and high nonlinearity in the infrared. [2]

© 2007 IEEE