Cavity solitons and their interactions

Localised states resembling spatial solitons have been predicted to exist in several models of cavities containing a nonlinear medium. Some of these, such as Kerr and χ⁽²⁾ media, support conventional bright solitons, while others, such as a saturable absorber or a defocusing semiconductor medium, do not. We describe some of these models and discuss similarities and differences between cavity solitons and other types of soliton. Bright cavity solitons formed in semiconductor microcavities may prove to be natural “bits” for image or parallel information processing. Their interactions, both with each other and with their holding field, are important with a view to such applications. We present simulations and analysis of such interactions, examining soliton-soliton forces and the effect of noise as well as local and global manipulations of arrays of “soliton data”