Abstract

The possibility of guiding light by light has now advanced from theory to experiment, thus opening the door to a truly futuristic all-optical technology. This prospect rests on the generation of highly stable self-guided modes (spatial solitons) in various nonlinear materials. Very recently it has been demonstrated that, dark solitons are highly effective for writing a range of technologically important structured waveguides,^1,2 and this development has motivated us to provide a clear physical picture of dark spatial solitons, starting from first principles.

© 1993 Optical Society of America