Optical Vortices and Vortex Solitons

TL;DR

This paper reviews the recent advances in the study of optical vortices and vortex solitons across various nonlinear media, highlighting their properties, stability, and different formation mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of vortex solitons, including their creation, stability, and behavior in different nonlinear optical systems, with emphasis on recent experimental and theoretical developments.

Findings

Self-focusing nonlinearity can support stable vortex solitons.

Vortex solitons can be created in multi-component and incoherent light.

Periodic photonic lattices enable discrete vortex solitons.

Abstract

Optical vortices are phase singularities nested in electromagnetic waves that constitute a fascinating source of phenomena in the physics of light and display deep similarities to their close relatives, quantized vortices in superfluids and Bose-Einstein condensates. We present a brief overview of the major advances in the study of optical vortices in different types of nonlinear media, with emphasis on the properties of {\em vortex solitons}. Self-focusing nonlinearity leads, in general, to the azimuthal instability of a vortex-carrying beam, but it can also support novel types of stable or meta-stable self-trapped beams carrying nonzero angular momentum, such as ring-like solitons, necklace beams, and soliton clusters. We describe vortex solitons created by multi-component beams, by parametrically coupled beams in quadratic nonlinear media, and in partially incoherent light, as well as discrete vortex solitons in periodic photonic lattices.