All-optical switching by spatial walkoff compensation and solitary-wave locking

Abstract
We demonstrate a novel approach to phase insensitive, all‐optical steering and switching based on an intensity‐induced change in the propagation direction of multidimensional spatial solitary waves in bulk, birefringent, quadratic nonlinear media. Our demonstration is based on second‐harmonic generation in a KTP crystal. Compensation for the lateral displacements due to walkoff in SHG is observed.