%0 Journal Article
%T Soliton dynamics in the multiphoton plasma regime
%A Chad A. Husko
%A Sylvain Combrie
%A Pierre Colman
%A Jiangjun Zheng
%A Alfredo De Rossi
%A Chee Wei Wong
%J Physics
%D 2013
%I arXiv
%R 10.1038/srep01100
%X Solitary waves have consistently captured the imagination of scientists, ranging from fundamental breakthroughs in spectroscopy and metrology enabled by supercontinuum light, to gap solitons for dispersionless slow-light, and discrete spatial solitons in lattices, amongst others. Recent progress in strong-field atomic physics include impressive demonstrations of attosecond pulses and high-harmonic generation via photoionization of free-electrons in gases at extreme intensities of 1014 Wcm2. Here we report the first phase-resolved observations of femtosecond optical solitons in a semiconductor microchip, with multiphoton ionization at picojoule energies and 1010 Wcm2 intensities. The dramatic nonlinearity leads to picojoule observations of free-electron-induced blue-shift at 1016 cm3 carrier densities and self-chirped femtosecond soliton acceleration. Furthermore, we evidence the time-gated dynamics of soliton splitting on-chip, and the suppression of soliton recurrence due to fast free-electron dynamics. These observations in the highly dispersive slow-light media reveal a rich set of physics governing ultralow-power nonlinear photon-plasma dynamics.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.5748v1