Optical ratchets with discrete cavity solitons

We propose a setup to observe soliton ratchet effects using discrete cavity solitons in a 1D array of coupled waveguide optical resonators. The net motion of solitons can be generated by an adiabatic shaking of the holding beam with zero average inclination angle. The resulting soliton velocity can be controlled by different parameters of the holding beam. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America