Three-Dimensional Light Bullets in Arrays of Waveguides

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental observation of three-dimensional light bullets in waveguide arrays, demonstrating their formation, evolution, and decay mechanisms through combined experimental and numerical methods.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of 3D light bullets in a waveguide system with cubic nonlinearity and periodic refractive index modulation, including their dynamic evolution and decay processes.

Findings

First experimental observation of 3D light bullets.

Light bullets follow varying dispersion and diffraction conditions.

Light bullets eventually decay after leaving their existence range.

Abstract

We report the first experimental observation of 3D-LBs, excited by femtosecond pulses in a system featuring quasi-instantaneous cubic nonlinearity and a periodic, transversally-modulated refractive index. Stringent evidence of the excitation of LBs is based on time-gated images and spectra which perfectly match our numerical simulations. Furthermore, we reveal a novel evolution mechanism forcing the LBs to follow varying dispersion/diffraction conditions, until they leave their existence range and decay.