Kompetenzzentrum für optische Spezialfasern

We investigate the effects of the space-time coupling (STC) on the nonlinear formation and propagation of Light Bullets, spatiotemporal solitons in which dispersion and diffraction along all dimensions are balanced by nonlinearity, through periodic media with a weak transverse modulation of the refractive index, i.e. waveguide arrays. The STC arises from wavelength dependence of the strength of inter-waveguide coupling and can be tuned by variation of the array geometry. We show experimentally and numerically that the STC breaks the spectral symmetry of Light Bullets to a considerable degree and modifies their group velocity, leading to superluminal propagation when the Light Bullets decay.