Abstract

These last years have witnessed growing interest in the subject of self-trapping of light beams in quadratic optical media. Potential applications of self-trapped beams to all-optical switching based on the light-guiding-light concept has motivated intense research activities which have led to rapid theoretical and experimental progress [1]. As an example, the so-called parametric or two-wave soliton of quadratic media has been experimentally observed in planar waveguides [2]. The interest of this soliton for all-optical switching has been examined theoretically in ref. [3]. Mutual interactions between solitons are the key processes for this type of application. In our communication we show the existence of new parametric solitary-waves which, for certain parameters, consist of bound states of several separate solitons. These bound states are stationary, which means that the interaction forces between solitons have been annealed. This suggests that, besides their fundamental aspect, the new solitary waves have potential interest as regards applications based on soliton interactions.

© 1996 Optical Society of America