title: Three-dimensional light bullets in arrays of waveguides.
abstract: We report the first experimental observation of three-dimensional light bullets, excited by femtosecond pulses in a system featuring quasi-instantaneous cubic nonlinearity and a periodic, transversally modulated refractive index. Stringent evidence of the excitation of light bullets is based on time-gated images and spectra which perfectly match our numerical simulations. Furthermore, we reveal a novel evolution mechanism forcing the light bullets to follow varying dispersion or diffraction conditions, until they leave their existence range and decay.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Minardi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Eilenberger
authors.forename: Y V
authors.initials: YV
authors.lastname: Kartashov
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Szameit
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Röpke
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kobelke
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schuster
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bartelt
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nolte
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Torner
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lederer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tünnermann
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pertsch