Abstract

Spatial solitary waves of the quadratic nonlinearity were discovered in the early 70's [1] and have been the subject of numerous investigations [2-5] due to the renewed emphasis placed on cascading for all-optical processing. [6-7] Such waves were recently demonstrated in bulk KTP crystals and Lithium Niobate planar waveguides, underlining the potential interest of such self-guiding fields for signal processing applications.[8-9] Among them, angular steering versus seed input phase [10] and versus power imbalance between input polarizations [11] have been reported in KTP. In this Communication, we elucidate some specific features of Type I and Type II second harmonic generation (SHG) interactions leading to the formation of 2+1 spatial solitonlike waves. Specifically, we demonstrate how a small angular tilt in the input fundamental frequency (FF) beam can provide pointing stabilization against peak power fluctuations when Type I (scalar) or Type II (vectorial) interactions are employed, while Type II processes can compensate random input angle perturbations in the weaker FF polarization component.

© 1996 Optical Society of America