Self-written waveguide in methylene blue sensitized poly(vinyl alcohol)/acrylamide photopolymer material.

We report the observation of a self-written waveguide inside a bulk methylene blue sensitized poly/vinyl alcohol)/acrylamide photopolymer material. Light from a low power He-Ne laser is focused into the material, and the evolution of the beam is monitored. The refractive index of the material is modulated in the region of high intensity due to photobleaching and photopolymerization effects occurring in the material. As a result, the beam propagates through the medium without any diffraction effects.

Variational approach to spatial optical solitons in bulk cubic-quintic media stabilized by self-induced multiphoton ionization.

Propagation of an optical high-power cylindrically symmetric beam in a material characterized by cubic-quintic nonlinearity is studied both analytically and numerically. In this case we have to consider the self-defocusing effect caused by the presence of free electrons produced due to plasma formation. The variational method is used to study the system analytically. The finite-difference beam propagation method is used for the numerical analysis. Stable (2+1) D spatial solitons are observed. The analytical results are found to be in very good agreement with the numerical results.