title: Observation of multivortex solitons in photonic lattices.
abstract: We report on the first observation of topologically stable spatially localized multivortex solitons generated in optically induced hexagonal photonic lattices. We demonstrate that topological stabilization of such nonlinear localized states can be achieved through self-trapping of truncated two-dimensional Bloch waves and confirm our experimental results by numerical simulations of the beam propagation in weakly deformed lattice potentials in anisotropic photorefractive media.
authors.affiliation: Nonlinear Physics Center and Laser Physics Center, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Terhalle
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.forename: Anton S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Desyatnikov
authors.forename: Dragomir N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Neshev
authors.forename: Wieslaw
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Krolikowski
authors.forename: Friedemann
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kaiser
authors.forename: Cornelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Denz
authors.forename: Yuri S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Kivshar