title: Propagation of solitons in thermal media with periodic nonlinearity.
abstract: We address the existence and properties of solitons in layered thermal media made of alternating focusing and defocusing layers. Such structures support robust bright solitons even if the averaged nonlinearity is defocusing. We show that nonoscillating solitons may form in any of the focusing domains, even in those located close to the sample edge, in contrast to uniform thermal media, where light beams always oscillate when not launched exactly on the sample center. Stable multipole solitons may include more than four spots in layered media.
authors.affiliation: ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, and Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain. Yaroslav.Kartashov@icfo.es
authors.forename: Yaroslav V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Kartashov
authors.forename: Victor A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Vysloukh
authors.forename: Lluis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Torner