Collisions of spatial solitons in optically induced lattices

Abstract

We present the theoretical model of coherent interactions of the light beams in a two-level resonant medium, taking into account a spatial-periodic modulation of the parameters of nonlinear medium in an interference field as well as nonlinear behavior of refractive index and absorption coefficient due to optical bleaching. As evidenced by the results of investigations described in this work, the process of light beams interaction via scattering from dynamically-induced optical gratings in two-level resonant medium is characterized by a number of interesting features like mutual attraction and repulsion, irradiation of additional beams probably due to soliton-soliton diffraction mode, formation of dark spatial solitons in the mode of defocusing interaction that can be used for all-optical control over the spatial structure of laser beams