Photorefractive solitons of arbitrary and controllable linear polarization determined by the local bias field

We discuss and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to achieve photorefractive solitons of arbitrary linear polarization using the quadratic electro-optic effect and describe the observation of the self-trapping of a set of linear polarized beams in different positions of a paraelectric photorefractive crystal of potassium-lithium-tantalate-niobate (KLTN) biased by the inhomogeneous field produced by two miniaturized top electrodes. The polarization of the single solitons of the set is determined by the local electrostatic configuration and the underlying tunable anisotropy, which is detected through zero-field electro-activation. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.