Access

News and Views

Nature Photonics 2, 334–335 (1 June 2008) | doi:10.1038/nphoton.2008.89

Solitons: Self-trapping of speckled light beams

Antonio Picozzi

A collimated coherent beam of light diffracts and spreads out as it propagates. In a nonlinear medium, however, the index of refraction may increase with the intensity of the beam, which leads to the phenomenon of self-trapping: as the index of refraction is greater at the centre of the beam than at its wings, the beam creates an effective waveguide lens for itself.