Multiple Breakup of Higher-Order Spatial Solitons

TL;DR

This paper investigates the breakup of high-order spatial solitons in AlGaAs waveguides, revealing that two- and three-photon absorption jointly cause the breakup, with experimental and simulation results supporting this mechanism.

Contribution

It demonstrates the combined effect of two- and three-photon absorption on soliton breakup in AlGaAs, extending previous understanding of soliton stability mechanisms.

Findings

Solitons break into multiple fragments due to multi-photon absorption effects.

High three-photon absorption in AlGaAs sustains breakup even when two-photon absorption is reduced.

Experimental results align with numerical beam propagation simulations.

Abstract

The breakup of high-order spatial solitons propagating in an AlGaAs slab waveguide is studied. We experimentally observe the breakup of such beams into multiple fragments and identify the mechanism of this breakup as the combined effect of two- and three-photon-absorption. We show that the multiple breakup persists even when the value of two-photon-absorption is reduced by an order of magnitude owing to the high value of three-photon-absorption of AlGaAs at the half band-gap. The experimental results extend known mechanism of soliton breakup induced by two-photon-absorption and agree well with numerical beam propagation simulations.