Phys. Rev. A 87, 043802 (2013)

Credit: © 2013 APS

Cavity solitons continue to attract much scientific and technological interest from the nonlinear science community. Kerr cavities, which consist of an optical resonator containing a dispersive third-order nonlinear medium (such as silica), have long been considered a useful means of generating cavity solitons. An investigation by Germán de Valcárcel and Kestutis Staliunas from Spain now reveals that the properties of a Kerr cavity can be drastically changed by a modulation technique based on the concept of 'rocking' — the forcing of a self-oscillatory system at a frequency close to its natural one but with a variable amplitude. The system becomes phase bistable when the sign of the injection amplitude is alternated by following a sinusoidal modulation in time (temporal rocking) or space (spatial rocking). Simulations using the damped nonlinear Schrödinger equation with parametric amplification indicate that the system supports one- and two-dimensional phase-bistable spatial patterns such as bright- and dark-ring cavity solitons and labyrinths. The researchers point out that the system is potentially attractive for applications in optical information storage and processing as it offers three logic states (off, plus and minus states).