title: Observation of surface dark photovoltaic solitons.
abstract: Surface dark solitons in photovoltaic nonlinear media are reported. Taking advantage of diffusion and photovoltaic nonlinearities we demonstrated the surface dark solitons and their behaviors near surface theoretically and experimentally in LiNbO₃ crystal. It is very interesting that surface dark soliton is just half of dark soliton in bulk. Another interesting thing is that transverse modulation instability can be perfectly suppressed by surface dark soliton in virtue of surface. In addition, surface waveguides were written successfully utilizing surface dark soliton.
authors.affiliation: Photonics Research Center, School of Physics, the MOE Key Lab of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Photonics Materials and Technology for Information Science, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China. zhangth@nankai.edu.cn
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Weiqiang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Tianhao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jianguo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Jingjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D008027:Light; D008956:Models, Chemical; D009556:Niobium / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010087:Oxides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation
chemical_list: D010087:Oxides; D009556:Niobium; C091692:lithium niobate