Spatial solitons in parity-time-symmetric mixed linear-nonlinear optical lattices: Recent theoretical results

Abstract

We provide a brief review of recent theoretical studies of optical spatial solitons in parity-time- (PT-) symmetric mixed linear-nonlinear lattices. The existence and stability of optical spatial solitons forming in PT-symmetric lattices with spatially periodic modulation of the Kerr nonlinearity are briefly overviewed. The linear optical lattices are considered to be either regular lattices or superlattices formed by the superposition of two periodic lattice potentials having commensurable lattice periods. The obtained results show that different kinds of linear optical lattices can profoundly affect soliton properties. In particular, by mixing linear and nonlinear optical lattices, a lot of unique spatial soliton properties were put forward. These features may find potential applications in all-optical signal processing and in high-speed circuits for optical communications systems.