Abstract

Recently spatial solitons consisting of two strongly coupled optical fields have been observed in the second harmonic (SH) generation process.¹ Theory has shown that these spatial solitons are stable.' Because of their robust nature, mutual trapping of the SH field and the fundamental (FW) occur even when the SH' is not launched into the system. In the quasi-plane wave regime, the stability gives way to modulation al instability processes, which causes the incident beam to break up into a multisoliton pattern. To our knowledge, this is the first observation of dynamical transverse instability in both one and two dimensions.

© 1997 Optical Society of America