Control and manipulation of solitary structures in a nonlinear optical single feedback experiment

We report on the addressing and control of the lateral positions of optical spatial solitary structures in a single feedback experiment with a saturable Kerr nonlinearity. Solitary structures allow a locally self-confined switching between a dark background and a bright state. This binary character can be of use to all-optically route information in optical networks. In general the lateral positions of solitary structures are strongly influenced by mutual interactions and system inhomogeneities. For potential photonic applications these interactions must be controllable. Therefore a noninvasive interferometric control method based on spatial Fourier filtering is studied in order to position solitary structures. Numerical and experimental results show that solitary structures can be aligned to periodic grids of different scale with hexagonal or square geometries. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.