Experiments on Linear and Nonlinear Localization of Optical Vortices in Optically Induced Photonic Lattices

We provide a brief overview on our recent experimental work on linear and nonlinear localization of singly charged vortices (SCVs) and doubly charged vortices (DCVs) in two-dimensional optically induced photonic lattices. In the nonlinear case, vortex propagation at the lattice surface as well as inside the uniform square-shaped photonic lattices is considered. It is shown that, apart from the fundamental (semi-infinite gap) discrete vortex solitons demonstrated earlier, the SCVs can self-trap into stable gap vortex solitons under the normal four-site excitation with a self-defocusing nonlinearity, while the DCVs can be stable only under an eight-site excitation inside the photonic lattices. Moreover, the SCVs can also turn into stable surface vortex solitons under the four-site excitation at the surface of a semi-infinite photonics lattice with a self-focusing nonlinearity. In the linear case, bandgap guidance of both SCVs and DCVs in photonic lattices with a tunable negative defect is investigated. It is found that the SCVs can be guided at the negative defect as linear vortex defect modes, while the DCVs tend to turn into quadrupole-like defect modes provided that the defect strength is not too strong.