Observation of spatially oscillating solitons in photonic lattices

Abstract

We report on the experimental observation of spatially oscillating solitons in two-dimensional nonlinear photonic lattices, realized by optical induction using a continuous nondiffracting Weber beam. Thereby, we introduce and demonstrate a new type of transverse soliton dynamics originating from the unique parabolic geometry of the photonic lattice. First, we numerically calculate the fundamental soliton solution for this lattice and experimentally demonstrate its existence. Afterwards, we experimentally launch the soliton with an additional transverse momentum and observe harmonic spatial oscillation during propagation.