Phenomena related to wave propagation in periodic media are at the core of some of the basic features of condense matter physics and have been the subject of a century of research. Using optical structures and in particular arrays of optical waveguides, our group has been able to observe and study directly some of these processes, from Bloch Oscillations to Anderson Localization.
In particular we are interested to observe the effects of interactions – or nonlinearities - on these processes, and to study the effects of quantum statistics in these systems.
For reviews of the field see "Discrete solitons in optics” F. Lederer, G.I. Stegeman, D.N. Christodoulides, G Assanto, M. Segev and Y. Silberberg, Phys. Rep. 463, 1-126 (2008). "Discretizing light behavious in linear and nonlinear waveguide lattices”, D. Christodoulides, F. Lederer and Y. Silberberg, Nature, 424, 817 (2003).