Abstract

The main objective of this talk is to give a simple introduction into the physics and properties of "dark" solitons and related localized modes, which occur in different problems of nonlinear optics. Unlike conventional (bright) solitons, dark solitons are spatially localized modes (or pulses) that exist on a background wave with nonvanishing asymptoics, the latter being usually modulationally stable. In the other words, a 2D dark soliton is a phase kink that connects two plane waves with the same amplitudes but different phases. In practice, such solitons are created of a background beam (or pulse) of finite extent but much longer than the soliton itself.

© 1995 Optical Society of America