Abstract

The existence of three-dimensional optical solitons, which feature simultaneous radially-symmetric 2D spatial self-focusing and temporal pulse compression, has recently been suggested¹. Unlike one- or two-dimensional solitons, light-bullets are completely localized and are confined purely by nonlinear effects; they do not require any static dielectric waveguide, but as a result can not take advantage of the interplay of dielectric confinement and material dispersion to yield a region of anomalous GVD. AGVD can be created with linear gratings², by pumping the media to invert the dispersion relation³, and via parametric gain⁴. Like lower-dimensional solitons, the spatial profile of a light-bullet is created by the balance of Kerr self-focusing and diffraction, while its temporal pulse-shape is determined by the balance of Kerr pulse-compression and group-velocity dispersion.

© 1995 Optical Society of America