We report on experimental observation of localized structures in two mutually coupled broad-area semiconductor resonators, one of which acts as a saturable absorber. These structures coexist with a dark homogeneous background and they have the same properties as cavity solitons without requiring the presence of a driving beam into the system. They can be switched individually on and off by means of a local addressing beam.

In this Letter, we propose a new mechanism to generate wrinkled patterns, based on the coupling between molecular diffusion and the buckling instability of rigid membranes “glued” on a polymer layer. The geometry of the diffusion front and the minimization of wrinkling energy conspire to generate various patterns of folds (e.g., parallel or radial folds, herringbone) and various dynamics (continuous or discrete). The diffusion process gives us the opportunity to study the stability of the various wrinkled patterns and to follow the creation or annihilation of topological defects.

Analytical and numerical calculations for a reduced Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chain demonstrate that energy localization does not require more than one conserved quantity. Clear evidence for the existence of a sharp delocalization-localization transition at a critical amplitude $A_c$ is given. Approaching $A_c$ from above and below, diverging time scales occur. Above $A_c$, the energy packet converges towards a discrete breather. Nevertheless, ballistic energy transportation is present, demonstrating that its existence does not necessarily imply delocalization.

We obtain exact spatiotemporal periodic traveling wave solutions to the generalized $(3+1)$-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation with distributed coefficients. We utilize these solutions to construct analytical light bullet soliton solutions of nonlinear optics.

In real photonic crystals light is scattered by the imperfections of the periodic potential. We study experimentally the propagation of diffused light in silicon inverse opals and report an exceptionally reduced diffusion constant of $3.0\pm 0.7{\mathrm{m}}^2/\mathrm{s}$, in samples which are only partially disordered. Waves scattered both by the lattice planes and by their imperfections interfere and light is efficiently trapped in this hybrid scattering regime. Not only higher quality crystals, but also random materials present an order of magnitude bigger diffusion constant and hence weaker scattering.

We report how a grating interferometer yields neutron dark-field scatter images for tomographic investigations. The image contrast is based on ultrasmall-angle scattering. It provides otherwise inaccessible spatially resolved information about the distribution of micrometer and submicrometer sized structural formations. Three complementary sets of tomographic data corresponding to attenuation, differential phase, and small-angle scattering can be obtained from one measurement. The method is compatible with conventional imaging and provides significantly higher efficiency than existing techniques.

We demonstrate that ultralong Raman lasers can be used to generate a transmission medium with simultaneous transparency over the spatial and the spectral domains. Numerical calculations show this cross-domain transparency to be preserved when the medium is used for transmitting high-intensity signals, which makes ultralong lasers an ideal experimental test bed for the study of multifrequency nonlinear interactions in optical fiber waveguides. Full spatiospectral transparency is experimentally obtained over a $20\mathrm{nm}\times 20\mathrm{km}$ window.

Although negative-refractive-index metamaterials have successfully achieved subwavelength focusing, image resolution is limited by the presence of losses. In this Letter, a metal transmission screen with subwavelength spaced slots is proposed that focuses the near-field beyond the diffraction limit and, furthermore, is easily scaled from microwave frequencies to the optical regime. An analytical model based on the superposition of shifted-beam patterns is developed that agrees very well with full-wave simulations and is corroborated by experimental results at microwave frequencies.

We demonstrate the existence of a spectrally narrow localized surface state, the so-called optical Tamm state, at the interface between one-dimensional magnetophotonic and nonmagnetic photonic crystals. The state is spectrally located inside the photonic band gaps of each of the photonic crystals comprising this magnetophotonic structure. This state is associated with a sharp transmission peak through the sample and is responsible for the substantial enhancement of the Faraday rotation for the corresponding wavelength. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.

We present time-resolved spontaneous emission measurements of single quantum dots embedded in photonic crystal waveguides. Quantum dots that couple to a photonic crystal waveguide are found to decay up to 27 times faster than uncoupled quantum dots. From these measurements $\beta$-factors of up to 0.89 are derived, and an unprecedented large bandwidth of 20 nm is demonstrated. This shows the promising potential of photonic crystal waveguides for efficient single-photon sources. The scaled frequency range over which the enhancement is observed is in excellent agreement with recent theoretical proposals taking into account that the light-matter coupling is strongly enhanced due to the significant slow-down of light in the photonic crystal waveguides.

We theoretically and experimentally evidence that fiber systems are convective systems since their nonlocal inherent properties, such as the dispersion and Raman effects, break the reflection symmetry. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations carried out for a fiber ring cavity demonstrate that the third-order dispersion term leads to the appearance of convective and absolute instabilities. Their signature is an asymmetry in the output power spectrum. Using this criterion, experimental evidence of convective instabilities is given in a fiber cavity pumped by a pulsed laser.

We theoretically predict and experimentally demonstrate inhibition of linear absorption for phase and group velocity mismatched second- and third-harmonic generation in strongly absorbing materials, GaAs, in particular, at frequencies above the absorption edge. A 100-fs pump pulse tuned to 1300 nm generates 650 and 435 nm second- and third-harmonic pulses that propagate across a $450\mathrm{\text{−}}\mu \mathrm{m}$-thick GaAs substrate without being absorbed. We attribute this to a phase-locking mechanism that causes the pump to trap the harmonics and to impress on them its dispersive properties.

By using evanescent waves, we study equilibrium and dynamical properties of liquid-solid interfaces in the Debye layer for hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces. We measure velocity profiles and nanotracer concentration and diffusion profiles between 20 and 300 nm from the walls in pressure-driven and electro-osmotic flows. We extract electrostatic and zeta potentials and determine hydrodynamic slip lengths with 10 nm accuracy. The spectacular amplification of the zeta potential resulting from hydrodynamic slippage allows us to clarify for the first time the dynamic origin of the zeta potential.

We report that meandering of a rivulet flowing down a nonerodible, partially wetting incline is triggered by flow-rate fluctuations and sustained by external noise forcing. In our experiments, the former is provided by an electronically controlled valve, and the latter is due to fluid droplets left on the surface by previous meanderings. We observe power-law behavior of the averaged spectrum of the deviations of the stream from its center line, which rules out the existence of a preferred wavelength in ongoing meandering. We derive a simple theoretical model of rivulet meandering from first principles, incorporating stream dynamics and external noise forcing. The model provides an accurate statistical description of the stream deviation from a nonmeandering path.

A novel dimensionless parameter, the particle moment number Pa, was derived using dimensional analysis of the particle-laden Navier-Stokes equations, in order to understand the underlying physics of turbulence modification by particles. A set of 80 previous experimental measurements where the turbulent kinetic energy was modified by particles was examined, and all results could clearly be divided into three groups in Re-Pa mappings. The turbulence attenuation region was observed between the augmentation regions with two critical particle momentum numbers.

A theory is presented of the negative refractive index observed in the so-called double-fishnet structures. We find that the electrical response of these structures is dominated by the cutoff frequency of the hole waveguide whereas the resonant magnetic response is due to the excitation of gap surface plasmon polaritons propagating along the dielectric slab. Associated with this origin, we show how the negative refractive index in these metamaterials presents strong dispersion with the parallel momentum of the incident light.

In the von Kármán Sodium 2 (VKS2) successful dynamo experiment of September 2006, the observed magnetic field showed a strong axisymmetric component, implying that nonaxisymmetric components of the flow field were acting. By modeling the induction effect of the spiraling flow between the blades of the impellers in a kinematic dynamo code, we find that the axisymmetric magnetic mode is excited. The control parameters are the magnetic Reynolds number of the mean flow, the coefficient measuring the induction effect $\alpha$, and the type of boundary conditions. We show that using realistic values of $\alpha$, the observed critical magnetic Reynolds number, $R{m}^c\approx 32$, can be reached easily with ferromagnetic boundary conditions. We conjecture that the dynamo action achieved in this experiment may not be related to the turbulence in the bulk of the flow, but rather to the $\alpha$ effect induced by the impellers.

The losses in a photonic crystal waveguide were measured with a near-field microscope in the group velocity range of $c/7$ down to $c/200$. Our measurements show that the losses scale proportional to $v_g^{-2}$ for group velocities above $c/30$. Below $c/30$, the losses are no longer described by the same power-law dependence on $v_g$ and the modal pattern becomes irregular, indicative of multiple scattering. The findings indicate the existence of two regimes of slow-light losses: one where a perturbative approach describes propagation with fabrication disorder and one where it breaks down.

We investigate both theoretically and experimentally the stochastic switching between two counterpropagating lasing modes of a semiconductor ring laser. Experimentally, the residence time distribution cannot be described by a simple one-parameter Arrhenius exponential law and reveals the presence of two different mode-hop scenarios with distinct time scales. In order to elucidate the origin of these two time scales, we propose a topological approach based on a two-dimensional dynamical system.

We ask what determines the (small) angle of turbulent jets. To answer this question we first construct a deterministic vortex-street model representing the large-scale structure in a self-similar plane turbulent jet. Without adjustable parameters the model reproduces the mean velocity profiles and the transverse positions of the large-scale structures, including their mean sweeping velocities, in a quantitative agreement with experiments. Nevertheless, the exact self-similar arrangement of the vortices (or any other deterministic model) necessarily leads to a collapse of the jet angle. The observed (small) angle results from a competition between vortex sweeping tending to strongly collapse the jet and randomness in the vortex structure, with the latter resulting in a weak spreading of the jet.