Role of charge saturation in photorefractive dynamics of micron-sized beams and departure from soliton behavior

Experimental and theoretical results indicate that miniaturized micron-sized nonlinear beam phenomenology in photorefractives leads to a regime qualitatively distinct from solitonlike propagation on consequence of the specific role of space-charge saturation. In the highly modulated conditions typical of beams, this contribution amounts to an effective electron self-action. © 2006 The American Physical Society