Fig. 3

Experimental realization of an optical solitary wave containing non-reciprocal internal interactions. a Schematic setup: beams A and B, synchronized with positive and negative voltages applied on the SBN crystal, experience self-focusing and -defocusing nonlinearities, respectively, and they interact via the storage property of the crystal. b Measured intensity profiles of a solitary wave at the input and at the outputs after propagation distances of 5 mm and 10 mm. In the absence of the mutual interactions, the output profiles of its two components show typical self-focusing and -defocusing dynamics. c–f present the normalized beam profiles in (b) by integrating the intensity patterns over the y-axis