Stable discrete surface light bullets

We analyze spatiotemporal light localization near the edge of a semi-infinite array of weakly coupled nonlinear optical waveguides and demonstrate the existence of a novel class of continuous-discrete spatiotemporal solitons, the so-called discrete surface light bullets. We show that their properties are strongly affected by the presence of the surface. To this end the crossover between surface and quasi-bulk bullets is studied by analyzing the families of solitons propagating at different distances from the edge of the waveguide array. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.