Abstract

Recently two experimental systems have been used to observe nonlinear effects and self-guiding in one transverse dimension. In the first system¹ a beam is broken into a stack of parallel filaments and nonlinear effects are observed across those filaments. This has led to a variety of experiments involving soliton beams and their interactions which are reviewed by Reynaud and Barthelemy.² In the second approach a planar waveguide is used to contain the beam in one transverse dimension (the y-direction) and then nonlinear effects dictate the beam properties in the second transverse dimension (the a:-direction)^3,4. This is proving to be a valuable experimental system.⁵

© 1993 Optical Society of America