Stabilization of dipole solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media

We address the stabilization of dipole solitons in nonlocal nonlinear materials by two different approaches. First, we study the properties of such solitons in thermal nonlinear media, where the refractive index landscapes induced by laser beams strongly depend on the boundary conditions and on the sample geometry. We show how the sample geometry impacts the stability of higher-order solitons in thermal nonlinear media and reveal that dipole solitons can be made dynamically stable in rectangular geometries, in contrast to their counterparts in thermal samples with square cross section. Second, we discuss the impact of the saturation of the nonlocal nonlinear response on the properties of multipole solitons. We find that the saturable response also stabilizes dipole solitons even in symmetric geometries, provided that the input power exceeds a critical value.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version