Abstract

Stationary nonlinear propagation has been known to exist in slab waveguides, but not in bulk media. We have discovered that a stationary dark nonlinear wave does exist, and we will present our experimental and numerical measurements. This mode occurs in defocusing type nonlinear media and appears as an optical vortex, i.e., a black spot around which the phase varies by 2π. The nonlinear Schrödinger equation accounts for this phenomenon and was actually first described by Ginzburg and Pitaevskii (1958) in the context of superfluidity.

© 1992 Optical Society of America