Nonlinear optical diffraction effects and solitons due to anisotropic charge-diffusion-based self-interaction

We report the first observation of self-modified optical diffraction, beam ellipticity recovery and conservation, and intensity independent self-focusing in an anisotropic diffusion-type nonlinearity realized in ferroelectrics heated above the centrosymmetric transition. The interaction, a photorefractive diffusion-driven quadratic nonlinearity, constitutes the first known natural realization of a higher-order logarithmic nonlinearity and allows an analytical description of the observed phenomena and the prediction of a class of noncircular solitons with no characteristic length scale.