Physica Scripta
Optical Bullet-Holes
W. J. Firth, A Lord, A J Scroggie
Abstract
A saturable absorber in a cavity is shown to sustain stable bleached areas which can be created by applying a short, localized address pulses (optical bullets). These bullet-holes can be controlled and configured as a "spatial soliton" memory array. The existence and stability of these states is investigated by taking advantage of their cylindrical symmetry, and similar methods show that the Kerr cavity can also support stable localized states.