RESEARCH ARTICLE

Dissipative gap solitons and vortices in moiré optical lattices

¹ Center for Attosecond Science and Technology, State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics, Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710119, China
² Yau Mathematical Sciences Center and Department of Mathematics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
³ Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, Beijing 101408, China
⁴ Key Lab of Mathematics Mechanization, Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
⁵ School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
⁶ School of Optoelectronics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
⁷ Collaborative lnnovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China

^* Corresponding author (email: zengjh@opt.ac.cn)

Received: 14 April 2024
Revised: 9 June 2024
Accepted: 11 June 2024

Abstract

Considerable attention has been recently paid to elucidation the linear, nonlinear and quantum physics of moiré patterns because of the innate extraordinary physical properties and potential applications. Particularly, moiré superlattices consisted of two periodic structures with a twist angle offer a new platform for studying soliton theory and its practical applications in various physical systems including optics, while such studies were so far limited to reversible or conservative nonlinear systems. Herein, we provide insight into soliton physics in dissipative physical settings with moiré optical lattices, using numerical simulations and theoretical analysis. We reveal linear localization-delocalization transitions, and find that such nonlinear settings support plentiful localized gap modes representing as dissipative gap solitons and vortices in periodic and aperiodic moiré optical lattices, and identify numerically the stable regions of these localized modes. Our predicted dissipative localized modes provide insightful understanding of soliton physics in dissipative nonlinear systems since dissipation is everywhere.