Formation of repetitively nanosecond spatial solitons in a saturable absorber Q-switched laser

Abstract

We report on an experimental observation of repetitively nanosecond spatial solitons in a saturable absorber Q-switched microchip laser. The formation of high-peak-power spatial localized structures is achieved by controlling the self-focusing effect in a nearly hemispherical resonator. Our experimental results not only show qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions but also give quantitative criteria for the self-focusing nonlinearity. In addition, we also observe the coexistence of amplitude and phase solitons.